The Federal Government has announced its National Digital Economy Strategy (NDES), outlining a plan to make Australia “among the world’s leading digital economies” by 2020.

 

The strategy has eight key ‘Digital Economy Goals’ as follows:

 

Online participation by Australian households

The Government contracted Allen Consulting to conduct research into the effects of increased online household participation. The research showed ‘that if the number of Australian households connected to the internet increased by 10 percentage points, this would provide gains to households of $2.4 billion a year’.

The expected gains were found in areas such as telecommuting (replacing physical commuting with online work participation), remote work, study opportunities, information gathering, price/product discovery and access to health services.

The government warned of the effects of the expansion of the digital divide, saying that ‘target action is required’ to ensure that exclusion is mitigated by the benefits outlined in the strategy. 

To that effect, the Federal Government has announced a $23.6 million Digital Communities initative that will focus on establishing ‘Digital Hubs’ in the first 40 communites that are connected to the National Broadband Network (NBN)

 

Online engagement by Australian businesses and not-for-profit organisations

The Strategy aims to encourage engagement between the NBN and the business sector, with the objective of placing Australia within the top five OECD countries in terms of the proportion of businesses and not-for-profit organizations using online business models. 

The Small Business Association of Australia has supported the initiative, saying  ‘the opportunities for small businesses in Australia’s broadband future are limitless. The NBN presents Australian small businesses with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to grasp a global long-term advantage."

The NDES states that ‘Presently, Australian businesses and not-for-profit organisations are not as digitally engaged as our international competitors’, citing Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data that indicates that since June 2009, only 41.5% of Australian businesses had a web presence, and 27.1% of Australian businesses took orders via the internet.

 

Smart management of environment and infrastructure

The NDES argues that “An NBN-empowered digital economy can improve Australia’s environmental sustainability by supporting applications that encourage more efficient use of water, energy, transport and infrastructure.”

The strategy suggests that with major urbanization of Australia’s population and the prospect of climate change over the future decades, an ‘NBN-empowered digital economy’ will be a valuable tool to deal with future challenges.

 

Improved health and aged care

The NDES sets as a goal that by 2020, 90 per cent of high priority consumers such as older Australians, mothers and babies and those with a chronic disease, or their carers, can access individual electronic health records. Further, by July 2015, 495 000 telehealth consultations will have been delivered providing remote access to specialists for patients in rural, remote and outer metropolitan areas, and by 2020, 25 per cent of all specialists will be participating in delivering telehealth consultations
to remote patients.

The NBN will provide a platform that allows homes, doctors’ surgeries, pharmacies, clinics, aged-care facilities and allied health professionals to connect to affordable, reliable, high-speed and high-capacity broadband.

The NDES referenced a report by Access Economics, Financial and Externality Impacts of High-speed Broadband for Telehealth, which  estimated that the ongoing benefits to Australia from wide-scale implementation of telehealth may be between $2 billion and $4 billion a year.

 

Expanded online education

The NDES maintains that the implementation of the NBN will pay dividends for the education sector, arguing that increased quality of Internet infrastructure will allow the tertiary education sector to make significant increases to education quality.

"The availability of ubiquitous, high-speed broadband has the potential to significantly extend the reach, availability and quality of education services, particularly in regional areas, to help meet these needs. This can be achieved by supplementing teaching and training with access to subject matter."

The Strategy sets as a goal that "by 2020, Australian schools, TAFEs, universities and higher education institutions will have the connectivity to develop and collaborate on innovativeand flexible educational services and resources to extend online learning resources to the home and workplace; and the facilities to offer students and learners, who cannot access courses via traditional means, the opportunity for online virtual learning."

The government has undertaken to implement an NBN-enabled tele-education trial to expand delivery of online education material and classes using high-speed broadband in the further education sector. It will also establish an NBN-enabled Education and Skills program, a four-year initiative investing $27.2 million to source, develop and implement innovative online and interactive education and skills services.

 

Increased teleworking

The Strategy argues that Australia is lagging internationally in levels of teleworking, and sets as a goal to double the level of teleworking by 2020, so that at least 12 per cent of Australian employees  have a teleworking arrangement with their employers.

The NDES report asserts that ‘The digital economy allows us to log in and connect anytime, anywhere, including to the office. By delivering reliable, high-speed broadband to all Australian premises, the NBN will give more employees and employers the confidence to engage in teleworking’.

The value of a 10 per cent increase in Australian employees who telework 50 per cent of the time is estimated to be between $1.4 billion and $1.9 billion a year, also saving 120 million litres of fuel, avoiding 320 000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and reducing traffic at peak periods by five per cent.

 

Improved online government service delivery and engagement

By 2020, the Strategy aims to have 80% of public engagement with government conducted through the internet or other online service.

The report argues that ‘Effective participation in the digital economy by government can reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction and promote innovation. Encouraging people to access government services online, and making it easier for them to do so, increases people’s digital confidence and digital literacy.’

 

Greater digital engagement in regional Australia

Another Strategy goal is that by 2020, the gap between regional and metropolitan personal and business users will have ‘narrowed significantly’.

 "A key government objective for the NBN is that a person’s ability to receive affordable high-speed broadband services should not be affected by where they live or work. The NBN will ensure that every community in regional Australia gets fair access."

 

The full report can be accesed here