This email to Councils requires an acknowledgement under each State's 
Local Government Act

Wed 12 Nov 2008						REF: AAEADSN1
							Y/R: Online Systems

	"UNCONSCIONABLE CONDUCT" BY CIT INDUSTRIES

TO:	The President/Chair/Mayor

This document has been faxed to the following major Professional Bodies, 
Associations, Societies and Councils as Online Carbon Credit registrations
are mandatory for all members in NSW from 2010 

		ORGANISATION			MEMBERS	NSW FAX NUMBER	

A	AICD Institute of Company Directors	20,000	F: {61}{2}8248-6633
B	CSAust Chartered Secretaries Australia	44,000	F: {61}{2}9232-7174
C	AICA Institute of Chartered Accountants	46,000	F: {61}{2}9262-1512		
D	CPA Certified Practising Accountants   117,000	F: {61}{2}9375-6299
E	NIA National Institute of Accountants	20,000	F: {61}{2}9283-8277
F	AIM Australian Institute of Management	25,000	F: {61}{2}9956-5613
G	TIA Taxation Institute of Australia	15,000	F: {61}{2}8223-0077
h	NFF National Farmers Federation	       115,000	F: {61}{2}8251-1750 
I	MLA Meat & Livestock Australia		40,000	F: {61}{2}9463-9393 
J	ASW Australian Wine Society		55,000	F: {61}1300-788-988
K	AIG Australian Industry Group		70,000	F: {61}{2}9466-5599
L	ASIC Aus Securities and Investments Commission	F: {61}{2}9911-2550
M	AMA Australian Medical Association 	27,000	F: {61}{2}6270-5499
N	ADA Australian Dental Association	20,000	F: {61}{2}9906-4917
O	ASC Australian Sports Commission All sport codesF: {61}{2}6251-2680
P	FFA Football Federal of Australia	10,000	F: {61}{2}9863-7155
Q	ARU Australian Rugby Union		15,000	F: {61}{2}8005 5699 
R	Willoughby Council			63,905	F: {61}{2}9412-3107 
S	Warringah Council		       138,646	F: {61}{2}9971-4522
T	Pittwater Council			56.954	F: {61}{2}9970-7150 
U	North Sydney Council			62,407	F: {61}{2}9936-8177 
V	Mosman Council			        23,000	F: {61}{2}9978-4132
W	Manly Council				39,214	F: {61}{2}9976-1400 
X	Lane Cove Council			32,000	F: {61}{2}9911-3600 
Y	Hornsby Council			       157,240	F: {61}{2}9847-6598 

Dear Sir/Madam 

I write to make you aware of the "Unconscionable Conduct" by the 
Communications and Information Technologies [CIT] Industries in 
developing National and International eCommerce standard that will
generate considerable profits for the CIT industries and unnecessary 
costs for your members.

A letter has been sent to the Hon Simon CREAN MP Minister of Trade to 
explain this problem for Australian exporters, however the implications 
for the members of Associations and Society organisations are equally 
important.

A	One Example of "Unconscionable Conduct" by CIT Industries
B	Practical Example with Councils 2006
C	Council Web Standards during 2002
D	single agreed formats by International CIT Committee

ONE EXAMPLE OF "UNCONSCIONABLE CONDUCT"

The "Unconscionable Conduct" includes developing a Standard Name and 
Address format for Online Internet Applications that has two different 
acceptable address formats in the same Standard.

That means that one address format is used for the On-line form for say,
the membership registration or event registration, while the second 
address format is used for the database.

This creates a perpetual cost to check and convert from one format to the 
other.

The implications are not only an increased "conversion" cost but also a 
great delay for "administration" processing.

Examples of different organisations in the same industry using non-compatible
computer-form layouts include

1	HESTA Superannuation Claim

2	MLC Superannuation Claim

3	ATO Superannuation Claim

Unfortunately it appears that many IT Professional Bodies such as the
Australian Information Industry Association [AIIA], 
Australian Computer Society [ACS] and Standards Australia are aware of 
this problem but prefer to accept/ignore the long term implications.

PRACTICAL EXAMPLE WITH COUNCILS

A known example of this problem involves the 32-Council "EasyBiz" Consortium 
in Victoria in 2006.

This Council Consortium had appointed a Project Management Consultancy called 
Sinclair, Knight and Mertz [SKM] to specify, develop and implement an 
"Online Regulation Reduction" process for local small businesses and home users.

There were 2 tenders prepared by SKM for this project which stipulated the use
of the Australian Online Standard format AS4590:

1 	A tender for The Hub to link to the 32 Councils

2	A tender to interface to the 32 different Council systems

When the problem of the two different formats in AS4590 was documented for 
SKM the response from Trevor PYMAN the SKM EasyBiz Project manager was 

"The EasyBiz project will use whatever standards produce the best result for 
our stakeholders". 
Ref SKM Response 29 Nov 2006

In this case the Stakeholders were CIT companies and not the Rate-payers who 
were paying for the "EasyBiz" Council systems !

FUNDING FOR COUNCIL WEB-STANDARDS IN 2002

In 2002 the Australian Federal Government provided $ 6,000,000 to
each State for the development of Local Government web-sites

This was the Oct 2002 tender placed by the NSW Local Government 
Association.

This was the status of the Online Standards development by ebXML Australia funded 
by the Federal Government from 2000-2002

1	The ebXML Standards Committee members 2000-2002

2	The  problem with the Name & Address format confirmed Feb 2002

NEXT STEPS 
 
Please find attached a copy of how a group of Public-minded independent IT 
professionals have resolved the problem which you may wish to review at your 
next Management Committee meeting

Please contact me if you require further information on this important issue

Yours faithfully			

Paul JENKINS		
Chair						
Ethics & Governance Committee
THE SME & SMO NETWORK
[Small & Medium Enterprises (SME) and
Small & Medium Not-for-Profit Organisations (SMO)]
 
E:	paul.jenkins@smeems.net	
M:	0416-009-468			

Attachments	

The full list of current agreed Online formats for Electronic Information 
Interchange [EII] including payments by Credit Card and Direct Credits 
can be reviewed here

A	Resolution agreed Oct-Dec 2006

B	Online Format for Name & Address Records

C	Online Format for Telephone & Fax Records

D	Online Format for Email Records

E	Online Format for Mobile Records

E	Online Format for Internet Records