The Coalition’s plan to cut 12,000 public sector jobs will be reviewed after Finance Minister Mathias Cormann announced that the previous Labor Government’s budget was based on an expectation of 14,500 redundancies. Cormann told the ABC “we're now going to assess the impact of Labor's secret cuts and how it interacts with the policy to the last election” in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.
Australian Taxation Office (ATO) Commissioner Chris Jordan has indicated that the agency is expecting to cut up to 900 staff by the end of the 2013-14 financial year, reports the Australian. The likely cuts will be made to meet the ATO’s contribution to the reduction of over 12,000 staff from the Australian Public Service. “Some voluntary redundancies will be needed, particularly given the current low natural attrition rate,” wrote Jordan in an email to staff.
The Department of Social Services also expects to cut between 250 to 300 staff to meet its budget of around $600 million, reports the Australian. The Department was created during Machinery of Government changes in September 2013, and has taken responsibility for most areas of the former Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs as well as taking on Ageing and Multicultural Affairs.
NSW Health is developing a draft plan for eHealth delivery in rural and remote areas of the State, which will include a five-year implementation strategy for IT programs, reports Pulse IT. The plan is expected to be sent to all rural CIOs for endorsement in early 2014. HealthShare NSW is also expected to approach the market soon for electronic medications management (eMM) software for a state-wide rollout.
The Victorian Government has begun work on a Cyber Security Strategy that will address the “State Government IT security operational capability to mitigate current cyber security threats”, governance arrangements, emergency response capabilities and the “management of cyber threat to multi agency, sector and whole of government services”. The Cyber Security Strategy will support the Victorian Government ICT Strategy, according to Victorian Technology Minister Gordon Rich-Phillips.
An update on the Victorian Government ICT Strategy 2013-14 reveals that 24 of the Strategy’s 50 actions are complete, with an additional four listed as “commenced and ongoing”. The Victorian Government has been successful in implementing all the actions in the designated timeframe, however, a large number of projects are nearing their due date of December 2013. All projects are due to be completed by July 2014.
The Victorian Department of State Development, Business and Innovation (DSDBI) has created four new IT roles, reports IT News. DSDBI is currently seeking candidates to fill the newly created roles of Executive Director of Digital Government, Director of ICT Innovation, Director of ICT Procurement and Director of Information Victoria, each of which will assist Victorian Chief Technology Advocate Grantly Mailes in delivering ICT initiatives.
The Federal Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) has indicated its plans to expand mobile offerings during Senate Estimates hearings. DPS has already implemented ParlView, an online platform to stream Parliamentary proceedings, and the Electronic Media Monitoring Service (EMMS) that records news and current affairs broadcasts for Senators and MPs to save and download. “We are very keen to move to a more appropriate electronic version for all of our documents, to ultimately have an app,” DPS Secretary Carol Mills told the hearing.
The Queensland Government has introduced electoral reforms in Parliament to allow vision impaired voters to cast their vote electronically through an electronic assisted voting system. Electronic voting will also be available for physically disadvantaged voters at some polling booths.
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