Senator Kate Lundy Shadow Minister for Sport, Youth Affairs and Assisting on Information Technology

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Senator Kate LundyShadow Minister for Sport,
Youth Affairs and Assisting onInformation
Technology

• Information Industry Development -
• with a social conscience

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Mr Jay NaidooMinister for Post,
Telecommunications Broadcasting for South
Africa,at the OECD Ministers Conference on
Electronic Commerce,held in Ottawa on October 9,
1998

• So as we discuss this momentous advance of our
  civilization and the emergence of a digital world
  economy, let us consider that this connectivity
  is, in fact, the greatest equalizer in the
  world.

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A social perspective

• Access and equity
• information haves and have-nots
• Converging content
• on-line and enabled
• Electronic commerce
• new market, new challenge
• Industry economics
• jobs and the trade deficit

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Access and equityinformation haves and have-nots
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Access and equityinformation haves and have-nots

• Households accessing the Internet from home
• 13.5
• 913,000 people

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Access and equityinformation haves and have-nots

• Main reason for not having a computer
• Costs are too high 27.4
• Lack of interest 55.9
• Other reasons 16.5

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Converging contenton-line and enabled

• Digital content is changing the shape,
• feel and look of what lands in front
• of our eyeballs
• - interactivity will take it to another
• dimension altogether.

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Converging contenton-line and enabled

• Public content
• Content control
• Privacy

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Electronic commercenew markets, new challenge

• global market place
• will play havoc with tax, current account
• consumer confidence
• will grow rapidly after PR on new security
• new charges
• captive markets pay private taxes

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Industry economicsjobs the trade deficit

• Trade deficit set to blow-out
• industry development and export growth the key
• Importing multinationals exacerbates problem
• leverage procurement to grow our own
• Global labour comes cheap
• Harness intellectual property, creative content
• Only Australia reduced education expenditure
• RD, specialised skills development a priority

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A global perspective
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A global perspectiveHuman Development Report 1998
Privately produced public goods, such as
technological innovations, need support from the
state plus dynamism in the private sector to
ensure that poor peoples technology and
environmentally friendly technology are produced
and marketed
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So as we discuss this momentous advance of our
civilisation and the emergence of a digital world
economy, let us consider that this connectivity
is, in fact, the greatest equaliser in the world.

• But in this very world that we live in, half of
  humanity has never used a telephone. Yet, that
  access could catapult, could leapfrog the
  remotest rural community of this world into the
  leading edge of this new economy.

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thankyou