Clever Country?

So the Special Minister of State, Gary Nairn, thinks Australia is ranked among the top nations for the delivery and implementation of services and programs via the Internet.

Tim Lohman heard him say so at the CeBIT techfest, where Nairn addressed the “e-Gov Forum”. Your mileage, as they say, may differ.

For starters, each sub-department seems to be doing its own online thing, which means you often can’t do everything over the Internet, even when you’re dealing with only one government authority.

Take a look at the RTA if you dare. Some years ago the RTA decided in its wisdom that any vehicle under three years old was unlikely to have fallen apart, so why bother to inspect the thing?

When a colleague at work announced that he was off to pay his registration, he was asked when he’d fixed his quite obviously smashed windscreen and what sort of tyres he’d chosen to replace his smooth-as-silk rubber. Not yet and none at all, came the reply.

His car was not yet three years old. Score nil for the RTA and the safety of other road users. A few years later and you can pay your registration online without ever queuing at the RTA or visiting a mechanic. All very well for people who drive late model cars with bald tyres.

For those of us who keep our cars a tad longer, inspection is still required but if your mechanic is high-tech then your pink-slip will be electronically recorded with the RTA’s database, and once again you can pay the registration fees online. All very well and a major step towards e-registration.

However, the bureaucrats who manage the database of mechanics who can participate in the e-Safety Check scheme don’t really get it.

If you are a mechanic who wants to join the program, you have to fill in the forms manually, even though you get them as PDFs off the RTA website, then send them by snail mail to Glen Innes and wait for an answer.

Glenn Innes? It’s true, on the Internet nobody can tell you’re a dog, but if you have to snail mail your application to Glen Innes, just how far have we really progressed?