The Australian Customs Service has admitted some users have been able to access and view each other's import documentation under the latest phase of its beleaguered new Integrated Cargo System, despite security assessment under Defence Signals Directorate's I-RAP (Infosec-Registered Assessor Program).

Federal government employees will become human guinea pigs as a preliminary test to an Australia-wide rollout of smartcards federal government services delivery under a proposal floated by Special Minister of State, Senator Eric Abetz.

When it comes to an intellectually satisfying and financially rewarding career in ICT, the federal government has an image problem and could do with a marketing makeover, according to Australian government CIO Ann Steward.

IT managers using low-hanging fruit, quick runs on the board and easy wins to sell the virtues of new technology deployments to management need to ensure they are not creating lemons in the process.

Senior public servants rarely shed tears in public, yet several had trouble concealing their emotions when Department of Immigration, Multiculturism and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) outgoing chief information officer Cheryl Hannah took the stage at a government IT conference in Canberra last week.

Having been anointed by public service chief Peter Sheregold as to lead government CIOs towards cohesive government ICT strategy, Australian Government CIO Ann Steward has been charged with fulfilling public service IT delivery expectations great and small.

The federal government is to dramatically shake up its internal IT strategy by the end of the year and will implement an ambitious scheme of programs including identity management, tougher contracts for vendors and an IT skills program.

Having parachuted into a new Ministry of IT Policy, Queensland's latest cyber politician, Chris Cummins, is banking that increased research and reporting will sooth perennially strained relations between the government and local industry.

Australia's latest whole of government CIO, Ann Steward, has used her first public speech to make all the right political noises and warn government CIOs and IT managers they must clean up their own backyards and learn to share infrastructure with their peers without quarreling.

E-Health initiatives have medicos fuming over time-consuming software and parents traumatized over automatic rebates that not only don't arrive but disrupt childcare arrangements.

Telstra's battle-scarred IT shop is again bracing for the broom of change, with new CEO Sol Trujillo singling out the telco's near-moribund billing infrastructure as a key strategic failing.

On what must be the busiest day on record for Telstra's management, the telco has posted a bumper profit, appointed a new chief operations officer, jettisoned its technology chief and presented its new CEO, Sol Trujillo, to the Prime Minister for a verbal beating over his anti-rural outbursts.

Attempts to exhume the concept of a national identity card backed by a central database have been effectively shut down by the National Party's Senator Barnaby Joyce (Queensland).

Attempts by Prime Minister John Howard and Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone to blame information technology for the illegal incarceration and deportation of Australian citizens have fallen apart with the release of former Federal Police Commissioner Mick Palmer's report into systemic failures at the Department of Immigration, Multiculturalism and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA).

A blistering speech by federal Health Minister Tony Abbott has shocked the IT health community and caused a bitter parliamentary rift over whether Australia's electronic health records should be held on a single massive database.