Canberra has played its role as a national communication centre haphazardly, to the delight and amazement of our international competitors, according to a senior communications academic.
Dr Graeme Osborne, of the University of Canberra’s Faculty of Communication, said communication was more than transmission of information.
“”Australian society, Canberra included, has largely failed to understand or even systematically assess the role of communication in its national life,” he said. “”At the international level we still see the spectacle that amazes and delights out international competitors, that is of Australian states and companies bidding unnecessarily against each other for overseas contracts.”
Nationally, Australia could not get a cohesive communications policy: witness the pay-TV deliberations, he said. Locally, Canberra’s principal tool of communication (aside from the phone) was the car, the least efficient communication solution in almost any terms.
The neglect of communication had led to the production of vast amounts of information without benefit to society. There was a widening gap between information production and information consumption.
Canberra was in a good position to do something about it.
Dr Osborne called for a National Communication Research and Training Institute, drawing on existing resources in Canberra with some user-pays services, to help make communication more effective for the good of the city and nation.
He was speaking at a forum, including a panel of 15 academics, at the University of Canberra last week on “”Future Options for Canberra”. It was a lead-up to the September “”Canberra: Face of the Nation?” conference sponsored by the university, the Canberra Business Council, the ACT Government and the National Capital Planning Authority.
Professor Mary O’Kane told the forum that Canberra was the natural information centre of Canberra. There were a large number of databases in government departments not being used effectively.
“”We should concentrate on developing very powerful information-handling and information-linking tools,” she said.
Databases should be linked to make queries easier. One query would replace many to different departments. Programs should be developed that scanned through the databases that alerted users when changes significant to them occurred happened rather than just dumping huge amounts of information on the desk.
More government services should be offered electronically, relieving staff for other tasks.
“”Many Canberra should become a city of infocrats rather than bureaucrats,” she said.