Backwards from the backwater

Graeme Philipson
February 17, 2009

Australia seems determined to maintain its minnow status in the global IT environment.

How many Australian companies do you think are exhibiting at this year's CeBIT computer fair in Hanover, Germany? It's the biggest computer event going, where companies from around the world display their wares and make the contacts they need in a globalised economy.

You would think we'd have a decent contingent, wouldn't you? There are usually a dozen or so Aussies there, though last year numbers were down to five (compared with 14 exhibitors from that hotbed of IT, New Zealand).

So, how many Aussie IT companies will be at the world's biggest computer show this year? None. Not a one. Zero. The show will open its gates to its usual half-million visitors and five thousand-plus exhibitors, but Australia will be unrepresented.

Way back in 1995, when Australia was partner country, there were more than 100 Australian exhibitors. I was there that year, and there was a sense of excitement about Australia becoming a major player in the international IT scene. Australian software and hardware companies were, it seemed, walking on to the world stage.

Obviously, it hasn't happened. Australia remains a technological backwater. Indeed, we have gone backwards.

What has gone wrong?

There are two major problems. The first is the at times almost criminal neglect of the IT industry by successive governments in this country. The second is the industry itself, which is far too often insular, unambitious and lacking in basic marketing and promotional skills.

Regular readers of this column will be well aware of my contempt for the way the Howard government treated the IT industry. No one had any idea, and a succession of ministers, and especially the disastrous Richard Alston, were so myopic they harmed the industry.

That government's ideologically driven sales of Telstra, not a bad concept in itself but massively mishandled, took priority over sensible planning. As a result, Australia continued to fall further behind the game, its broadband connectivity rates laughable.

We never recovered from this monumental mismanagement, but many of us held some hope that the Labor Government elected in 2007 would be an improvement. Alas, it has not been.

IT policy under the current Government is non-existent. Countries such as Singapore and Korea have ministries for IT. In Australia IT policy is handled by the ICT Industry Development section of the Aerospace, Defence and ICT Branch of the Manufacturing Division of the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.

In 21st-century Australia, IT (or ICT - the two are really indistinguishable), does not rate its own department. It does not rate even a division within a department, nor even a branch within a division.

IT policy in the Rudd Government is managed out of a small office that has the bureaucratic status, in a very hierarchical government structure, of a section of a branch of a division of a department.

The minister responsible is Senator Kim Carr, who cares so much about IT that last year he visited Germany while CeBIT was on but did not even bother attending.

There was no mention of IT in the Government's recent stimulus package, the totality of which was only twice the size of Australia's annual IT trade deficit. There was no mention of IT in last year's 2020 Summit. IT is invisible to this Government, and in this Government.

Another senator, Stephen Conroy, is in charge of fixing the disaster area that is Australia's broadband infrastructure policy. Conroy impressed many with his intelligence and commitment, but any political capital he brought to the job has been eroded with his misguided attempts to censor the internet.

I haven't written much about this - it has been adequately covered elsewhere - but you've got to ask yourself why the Government is proceeding with attempts to filter the internet at the ISP level when every single piece of advice from industry experts (not to mention common sense) tells you it's a bad and unworkable idea.

I could go on. It's a sad and depressing story. China is becoming an IT powerhouse. Korea is streets ahead. Taiwan, with the same population as Australia, makes most of the world's laptops and games consoles.

Singapore and New Zealand, each with populations less than one quarter that of Australia's, do a better job. Yet Australia, the "clever country", does nothing. (And by the way - notice how the term "clever country" is only ever used ironically or sarcastically nowadays?)

And I haven't even mentioned the problems within the industry. Governments can't do everything. They can create the right environment, and facilitate trade, and encourage people (not that the Australian Government is doing any of these things), but a horse led to water can't be made to drink.

Australia is full of innovative people and small IT companies with big ideas. There are some great start-ups, and the odd international success. But for a country of our size our global impact is pathetic, except for the many Australian expatriates working around the world for multinational IT companies, the fruits of their labours benefiting companies based elsewhere in the world.

The reasons why this is so are many and complex. After my diatribe against governmental incompetence and indifference I find myself with little space to discuss them. I'll return to the issue in a future column.