Green senator, Scott Ludlam, has been one of the most vocal advocates for the Australian ICT industry in Federal Parliament, championing the National Broadband Network (NBN), and siding with movements against the mandatory Internet filter. Most recently, Ludlam launched a Senate inquiry into the data retention regime currently under exploration by the Attorney-General's office.
All his talk about tech seems to have sprouted out of his past as a graphic designer and subsequently web designer during the 1990s.
While Ludlam is not up for re-election on 21 August, his role in the Senate could change, should the Australian Greens fulfil their hope of gaining the balance of power in the Senate. Computerworld Australia talked to Senator Ludlam about his view on the role of technology and the need for more focus on the Australian games development industry.
What was your career before politics and have did you get into becoming a senator?
Before politics I ran a web design studio for a couple of years. My trade is actually as graphic designer. I came through uni and they were getting their first Mac lab when I was in third year so I got a bit of an idea of what you could do with that technology, with very early builds of Photoshop and so on.
I spent eight or nine years as a graphic designer and transitioned in 1995 to web design; myself and a couple of mates taught ourselves HTML and built the first ever Mountain Designs website. We had a little studio that lasted for a couple of years before it went sideways.
So, as far as the communications portfolio goes, I've got an enduring affection for the Internet and I know how difficult it is to do business in that sphere.
What got me into politics was dissatisfaction with the corporate world. I wanted to do something a little more meaningful if I could. I got caught up in the campaign to prevent uranium mining in Kakadu national park in Jabiluka. I spent a couple of years as a ratbag doing volunteer environmental work for an NGO (non-government organisation) and ended up staffing for one our state Greens MPs, Robin Chapple, for the north west.
I worked for Senator Rachel Siewert and realised I was really enjoying the Canberra staff against my better judgement. I found the parliamentary stuff really fascinating.
At the end of 2006, I put my hand up for the Senate seat in Western Australia
What is your view on the role of technology and telecommunications in the government and government services?
On Gov 2.0: I think it's actually one of the more healthy initiatives that's emerged in the last two years. Senator Kate Lundy, who spearheaded that, has done a really good job in opening up that debate on how services should be provided and also very interesting ideas around transparency in government. I'm interested in encouraging that and supporting that however I can.
It's obviously going to take a very long time for that kind of world view to seep into the deeper, older and more reclusive elements of government. Some departments don't even even pay lip service to transparent government.
There's really a Jekyll and Hyde approach at the moment. We've got very important reforms around the restructuring of the telecommunications market and the establishment of the NBN on the positive side of the ledger. On the negative side, we've got the web logging proposal and mandatory Web censorship. It's not black and white because, as usual with government, there are contradictions more or less at every turn.
On online services: I think it's patchy and as usual with government, when you're trying to have a whole lot happening across a whole range of departments, some departments are further ahead than others. Some ministers get it more than others do but the necessity is there.
These things are also a double-edged sword. We raised quite serious privacy concerns around e-health for example; there's obviously some benefits but then you need to look at the more information that we put online and plug into government departments, it can have consequences for privacy, for people who will grow from their earliest moments with a serial number.
I think there's obviously more that could be done, but as we advance we need to keep track of who's able to access this info, how much is available online, where it can go and what it can be used for. I think we'll see much more of it as the NBN rolls out. With 20% of households not having a computer and a lot of people not having access to broadband, we have to be careful of the idea of providing people with government services on the web when not everyone has access to it.
It's all very well if you live in central Melbourne and have very fast broadband, but these things have to advance at the same time.
What is your view on the role of technology and telecommunications in Australia's wider future?
Over the last two and a half years we've had a debate about competition reforms and market structure and competing interests of different players in the sector, but for me it's much less interesting than what Australians will do when these technologies are more ubiquitous and much more rapid than they are now. I think things will change rapidly, not just at a governance level but also a cultural level when we realise that we're plugging into the rest of planet Earth in a way that's never really been possible before. We've got a lot to offer, I think.
The technology does have a dark side - the filter debate has traversed some of that ground - but I'm something of an optimist I suppose. I'm interested in exploring what we would be able to do in health and education particularly in sustainability and telecommuting and so on. At the same time as we're rolling out things like bullet trains for the east coast capitals, we can encourage people to conduct more meetings online, more videoconferencing, starting with the Parliament and some of the committee work. Perhaps we could all spend a little bit less time in the air if we're able to have ubiquitous, real time communication with people anywhere in the world.
Is enough being done to ensure ICT in Australia is given the funding and recognition required to innovate and develop needed skills?
I suppose government could always do more, the one area that I think we've neglected at our peril is online gaming. The gaming industry suffered from a certain amount of neglect I think, we've got great creative talent here in Australia, we've got a thriving local film industry and television to a lesser extent, and I think we've also got a wealth of talent in the digital arts industry that we're not supporting very well. In discussing this with the industry a couple of months ago, they were regretting being shoeboxed into gaming because it's digital arts more broadly that we're neglecting in Australia and I think that will be quite exciting when we see more systematic institutional support for those creative industries.
Some of these games make more money than the films they're tied to. In a way I think there's maybe some generational change needed to occur at a policy level because some people will just stare at you blankly. They're caught in a little bit of a mental backwater in the sense that people don't understand that it is about digital arts, not just about Donkey Kong anymore.
Though you're a minority party, are there any portfolios you would prefer to look after in the next Government?
If we get a good, strong team of Greens it will allow us to specialise a little more. I'm carrying nine portfolios at the moment, I love them all but I would equally really like to be able to specialise a little bit more, and pay more attention to each one. I'm not being drawn to much on which but I'm really enjoying my work with communications so that's at the top of my list.
Having a larger team would allow us to do that.