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Legislative
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| Ian Gilfillan Australian Democrats Member of the Legislative Council |
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Legislative
Council |
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| Ian Gilfillan Australian Democrats Member of the Legislative Council |
Parliament Index |
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ELECTRONIC TRANSACTIONS BILL
Adjourned debate on second reading.
The Hon. IAN GILFILLAN: The Australian Democrats support this Bill. Our position was made clear by Senator Natasha Stott Despoja, in a speech to the Senate on 25th November 1999, when the identical Commonwealth Bill was being debated. In view of the importance of electronic commerce, the importance of this Bill "cannot be overemphasized." To say that is not to suggest that this Bill ‘covers the field’ as far as electronic transactions are concerned. Much more is required to be done, in connection with e-commerce. To use Senator Stott Despoja’s words:We (the Democrats) remain concerned that while the Government are willing to address the legal issues surrounding electronic transactions, they are still not willing to follow up with the necessary policy reforms in relation to encryption, authentication, and privacy. While we are pleased that the Government is acting to open up the field of electronic transactions between the government and citizens, we certainly have concerns that this legislation will not be backed by the necessary resources and policy changes. We particularly want the Government to demonstrate that they understand the impediments to adoption of electronic commerce and the crucial equity issues being raised by the uneven use and availability of information technology.
In South Australia, the state government proclaims its vision with Information Economy 2000, yet its reality does not match the rhetoric. We are talking about an industry that has the advantage of doing business `at the speed of thought', which was Bill Gates' phrase when he was in Australia recently. Yet, back on 5 April, more than six months ago, I alerted the government to the fact that it had no information online to assist South Australian businesses in this regard. The Attorney assured me on 27 June as follows:
The successful `Good Business Guide' booklet is in the process of being updated to include a section covering e-commerce for business. A draft of the booklet is currently being circulated to business organisations for comment.
However, when I visited the SA Central web site on Monday 9 October (yesterday) and searched for `Good Business Guide' I found precisely zero. Obviously, this is not a high priority for the state government. Let me recapitulate what I told this chamber on 5 April. In my search for e-commerce assistance to South Australian businesses, back in April I said:
I found a pitifully small two-page information sheet put out by the Department of Industry and Trade. This Bizfact sheet was out of date and contained a broken link, while it warned businesses to check their own web sites to ensure that links were not broken. And that was all.
Yesterday I went back to that same information sheet to see whether it had been improved. It was still there, and it had not be changed at all. Despite my helpful hint to the government six months ago, it had not been updated: the broken link was still there, still broken. It seems that the grand visions, the motherhood statements of the Premier and the posturing of other government ministers come to nought when those who are supposed to carry out the e-commerce are foolish enough to rely on the government.
South Australian government ministers used to have a web site (www.ministers.sa.gov.au ). The site is still there, but it is broken, with the pictures taken down and the links to all the ministers' web pages, except minister Wayne Matthew's, broken. Those who try to follow the links get a message to keep trying the original page which sent them to the broken links. There is actually a new site for all the ministers, now part of the Premier's web site, but there is no way that visitors to the old site would know that. Those who have bookmarked the former site for any or all ministers are left to assume that the sites are simply down or temporarily out of action. There is no redirection in place, as there ought to be for a professionally-run web site.
I return to the bill. I note that the Law Society has expressed a desire that documents such as powers of attorney, wills and property documents should be excluded from the ambit of the bill: that is, the society insists that these documents must continue to be always limited to ink on paper rather than any electronic medium. I note in this regard that the bill provides for regulations to exclude specified laws or transactions from the legislation which I consider is sufficient to safeguard the Law Society's concerns, but no doubt the Attorney will make observations about that at some stage either in summing up the debate or in committee.
To sum up, the Australian Democrats support the Electronic Transactions Bill. It is a much needed useful step towards improving South Australia's capacity to capture a share of global trade and communications that is suitable for electronic execution-
The PRESIDENT: Order! There is far too much audible conversation in the chamber.
The Hon. IAN GILFILLAN: Thank you, Mr President. However, by itself, the bill is woefully insufficient for fulfilling South Australia's potential in this area.
This Bill was later debated and passed with Democrat support: 24 October 2000
