Op Ed - Australia remains an online land of digital divides - Daily Telegraph, 2 May 2023

Australia remains an online land of digital divides

Ask Australians if they want better access to federal government payments and support, and they’d answer yes.

Of course they would.

From the age pension to child support payments, JobSeeker and childcare benefits, millions of us regularly deal with Services Australia. But Canberra needs to show leadership.

For instance, every state and territory has some form of service centre – the front doors of government.

Commonwealth services should be accessible at these as well.

In Emerald, the Queensland government operates mobile offices allowing access to commonwealth payments and support.

But in Hamilton, the Victorian government service provider operates solo.

Canberra should be actively pursuing more joint service opportunities.

It’s not just the physical structures that need attention, its digital services, too.

When the Coalition government created Services Australia, the aim was simple: to make access to services easier and safer with a clear focus on offering more digital services.

A great example is myGovID.

A form of digital passport, it’s a secure way for Australians to verify their identities to access more than 80 services online.

More than six million Australians were using the myGovID system by late 2021, including 1.3 million businesses.

But state governments have separate ways of verifying ID.

For example, Western Australia’s ServiceWA app requires a myGovID, but Service Victoria has no such requirement.

Why not have the one standard no matter where you live?

Canberra could be taking the lead by getting all the states and territories in the room more often.

Yet there have been only two meetings of the relevant ministers on these issues since the election of the Albanese government.

We need a full audit of digital services delivered by federal, state and local governments.

Regular stocktakes will create more opportunities to make these services better and more accessible.

A further priority is the delivery of a national digital identity system.

Under such a scheme, Australians would no longer have to hand over their identities every time they want to buy a product or service like a mobile phone plan, instead relying on a single trusted and secure provider to share that information.

Disappointingly, Labor has done little to progress the Coalition’s work in this area.

Millions of Australians whose identity data were stolen in the Optus and Medibank hacks would rightly wonder why.

This government has commissioned plenty of reports, studies and reviews but when it comes to the better delivery of government services Australians rely on, it is past time it took action.

Paul Fletcher is the Shadow Minister for Government Services & the Digital Economy

Text as appears in the Daily Telegraph, page 13, 2 May 2023