Kai

I'm a German migrant who recently got his PR for Australia. I'm working as a freelance web designer and developer. Let me compare a few things to Germany, which in my eyes is a lot further ahead in the IT sector. 1) First off, the whole filtering thing is BAD BAD BAD publicity. Many teachers, parents, business people etc who are less familiar with the internet in general will use this as a reason to tell their younger ones "I told u so", meaning, they think they have a proof to be scared of what's happening in the "cyber world". Your filter works counter productive - big time. And it's a waste of money that you should rather spend on upgrading the things you mentioned in your post. 2) You should put A LOT more effort into supporting online/digital entrepreneur. I'm not only talking about financial aids to start-up companies. I'm talking about offering more fairs, expos and other industry related events. 3) Make broadband more available and CHEAPER! In Germany most people pay around 30 Euros to have a flatrate for high speed DSL and a flatrate for Germany-wide calls. (mobiles excepted). I'm currently paying 70 Dollars for my DSL connection alone and that is even capped at 15 GB! 4) Provide incentives to media firms to include blogs, social networks and other so called web 2.0 features in their media coverage and on their websites. If you listen to radio or the news on TV in the US, you'll notice that they heavily refer to bloggers and online experts in their specific areas of expertise. Where is the Michael Arrington of Australia??? 5) Recognise important industry leaders for their skills and experience: in Germany many start-up companies get much more exposure to media, public etc. They seem to be praised a lot more for their achievements which creates an interest by the public. On the other side, it would be nice to give people (like me) that develop and create IT a chance to be heard. Support IT events by sponsoring them, invite professional IT workers to speak at events with medium to large business owners etc. 6) This may not directly respond to your post, it's just an observation: there is a LOT more advertising for computers and software on TV and in newspapers in Germany. They only ads about PCs I see on Australian TV is that of DELL. Harvey Norman seems to be the only nation-wide retailer that offers affordable PC hardware. In Germany even discount retailers like ALDI offer PCs, notbooks, monitors etc. Since they started selling PCs pretty much everybody got interested in it because the 50 yo mum went grocery shopping and told their kids about this cheap PC offer... What I'm trying to say: IT hardware (that includes iPhones, Netbooks & all other gadgets) need to be a lot more present in the Australian retail and advertising sector. I dont know how government can help improve that, but most Australians still think that they don't need a PC and it's too complicated to get one...