Five ICT issues to watch in tonight's budget

GREEN ISSUES AND SMART INFRASTRUCTURE

Industry pundits expect a raft of announcements around 'innovation' and 'green' packages to coincide with last month's announcement of a Government-led National Broadband Network (NBN) rollout. 

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy will be spending the morning of the budget presenting a speech to the CeBIT conference that again trumps the development of smart infrastructure (smart grids and power meters, for example) as a key application for the NBN.

Government insiders have told telecommunications analyst Paul Budde to "watch the budget closely" for evidence of recommendations the members of his Digital Economy Industry Workgroup made to the Government around smart infrastructure.

DEFENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

Contractors to Defence and border security agencies are likely to be beneficiaries from Swan's budget. It will be very interesting to see if recommendations made in the recent Defence White Paper end up in the Budget papers.

Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has already responded to many of the recommendations in the white paper in principle. Among those with ICT implications, he highlighted that Defence is looking to remediate the "ageing Department's Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure;" consolidate Defence's intelligence systems and "standardise and consolidate shared services" in several areas, including business information systems.

Fitzgibbon also said the Government is looking to improve Defence's computer systems to "deliver a more integrated payroll and personnel management capability". The white paper also described Defence's electronic warfare capability as "inadequate", recommending the build of a dedicated Cyber Security Operations Centre. 

The budget may provide some forward estimations into the cost of acting on these measures.

Nick Ellsmore, ex-CEO of security contractor SIFT and now CTO of stratsec, believes the budget will at minimum lead to a clarification of roles in addressing cyber- and e-security issues.

"We're expecting some of the Government's strategy in terms of how IT security will be structured to be outlined in the budget," Ellsmore said. "If you look at how security is delivered or handled by the Government, the responsibility is spread across the Attorney-General's department, DBCDE, ACMA, AGIMO and DSD, as well as having groups like AusCERT which receive Government funding and have a role to play as well.

"I expect that coming out of the budget this will change. I certainly don't think we'll necessarily see a super centre established that is responsible for the whole thing - I don't think it will get to that point, but I see some scope for the clarification of responsibility if nothing else."

Defence is likely to share the budget spoils with those agencies involved in border protection.

With an increasing number of political refugees and other asylum seekers taking dangerous measures to reach Australian soil, the Government will also be under pressure to "be seen to be doing something" in relation to Border Protection.

Government insiders expect good news for those supplying systems to the Department of Immigration or the Australian Customs Service.

What do you expect will be in tonight's budget? Drop in a comment below or let us know directly!