Newsgroups: soc.culture.australian,aus.general,aus.computers,aus.org.acs From: tomw@ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au (Tom Worthington) Subject: Australia Day Message about Internet/InfoBahn from Governor-General Message-ID: <1995Jan27.004832.26509@sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au> Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 00:48:32 GMT Status: O AUSTRALIA DAY MESSAGE BY THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA THE HONOURABLE BILL HAYDEN AC We have heard a lot lately about the communications revolution and the information super-highway down which we'll soon be travelling. Sometimes it can seem a bit bewildering, as if all the super-highway involves is 'gee-whizz' technology. Many of us are not even quite sure what the term means Unfortunately it has been rather over-hyped in some places overseas. After hype comes disappointment - and after that comes disillusionment. And that would be a tragedy, because the concept of the information super-highway is important. As the telecommunications, computing and broadcasting industries converge, they will have the propensity to transform many aspects of our daily lives. At its simplest, the super-highway will eventually involve a global broadband network of high capacity computers, linking our homes and desks to the world using many technologies. It will be inter-active, which means we will not only be able to receive material through the network, we will also be able to send St out to others, using combinations of text, sound, graphics and video. At present, we are already on the access roads that lead to the information super-highway. Many schools, libraries, museums and even quite a few homes have CD-ROM players. The discs can hold encyclopedias of information, plus sound and vision. Within three years it is estimated there will be over one million players in Australia. But you can't interact with CD-ROMS in the same way as you can with on-line information systems and broadband services. Already in Australia there are over 127,000 computers linked to the world-wide Internet system, giving rapid access to huge data-bases of information. It is being used by many educators, researchers, businesses, government information services and institutions. It means that people - school children, for instance - in remote centres like Mt Isa, Alice Springs and even outback homesteads who are linked to Internet can have almost instant access to the resources of great metropolitan libraries here and around the world. And its electronic mail services allow whole communities of local, regional and global interest to communicate directly. Internet is now beginning to transmit sound and pictures as well as text. In some ways it is a prototype of the global broadband network as it is likely to develop over the next 10 to 15 years. It will change more of the ways we do things - as the microchip has been doing over the past 20 years. Many more people will be able to work from home. Designers, engineers and manufacturers will be able to discuss plans and products with clients thousands of miles apart, with enormous savings in costs and time. The capacity of high performance computing systems to process complex data and produce computer-generated images will he available in the office and the home. These powerful systems have been used in mineral exploration and geo-physical data analysis, in astro-physics, in assessing metal stress levels in manufacturing processes. The systems are revolutionising engineering design and experiments. There are great savings in testing vehicle safety. Many pharmaceutical laboratories are using high performance computer analyses to replace so-called 'wet' chemistry. During the NSW bushfires last year, super-computers predicted the likely course of the flames and smoke. The information super-highway will change many aspects of education. Teachers and students in different parts of Australia, or even the globe, will be able to talk to each other as if they are in the same room. Seminars and lectures might be received in 'real time' around the world. Remote and open learning could be transformed. At present, in the Northern Territory some Aboriginal communities are being brought much closer together through video-conferencing. There are already important gains for health services: for medical teaching, for rapid long-distance diagnosis, as some successful trials in tele-medicine between Adelaide and Whyalla have shown. People will soon have access through their computer screens to some of the world's great art collections and museums. Films, interactive television, networked games and video on demand will be available as part of home entertainment. We will be able to go shopping, do the banking, talk to and see telephone callers through the computer screen. Now, these sorts of changes won't happen all at once. But within five years or so they'll start to penetrate the Australian market more widely. And I think we need to consider the issues carefully and soberly. They are important to us. Australians have a reputation as smart users of technology. we have a history of intelligently adopting new and better forms of communications at a rapid pace. Look how quickly we took up fax, videos and mobile phones. We are among the highest users of PCs and Internet. It is essential that as a smart country, Australia not only gets the delivery systems right but as importantly the content of the traffic that the super-highway will carry. It is important that we retain our own cultural identity - that we are not swamped by overseas product, as last year's 'Creative Nation' statement by the Prime Minister strongly acknowledged. It is important that we make adequate investments in our own knowledge-based industries and intellectual resources. we have been among the leaders in our region developing and applying high performance computer technology, but our competitors are overtaking us, and we can't afford to let that happen. It is important that we think now about some of the broader issues such as privacy, information security and copyright, equity and access, so that the super-highway serves the interests of everybody - rich and poor, young and old, people in remote areas as well as the cities. I know that governments and institutions are thinking seriously about these questions. It is also incumbent on us as individual Australians. In past generations, Australia was built largely by the perspiration and physical hard work of the pioneers. The future will depend on our inspiration: on our creativity, innovation, and intelligence. On being smart. And that's not just the message I want to bring to you this Australia Day. It is the message that the whole global revolution in electronic communications has been bringing us. ### -------------------------------------------------------- Distributed by permission of Government House, Canberra (fax: +61 6 2833574), as a community service by Tom Worthington, Director of the Community Affairs Board, Australian Computer Society Inc., E-mail: tomw@acslink.net.au Home page: http://acslink.net.au/~tomw/ Copies of Australian Government multimedia/InfoBahn reports and policy are available from the National Library of Australia WWW server at: URL: http://www.nla.gov.au/ The ACS's Submission on the InfoBahn: "Vision for a Networked Nation" is available by FTP from the ACS directory of 'archie.au' or URL: http://www.act.acs.org.au/acs-link.html