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[ Home ] [ eCommerce Tenders ] [ UN/CEFACT-Objectives ] [ XZIG Membership ] [ OIC AS4590 Paper ] [ AS4590 Tender ] [ Index ] [ Copyright ]