JanW

It's always made me scratch my head why Australians, either business or members of the public, aren't provided free access to information created by the Australian Government. It is paid for by taxpayer's money, so it belongs to the public, NOT the 'government'. Other than information that is deemed of a national security nature, any and all other info should be available at no or minimal cost, and electronically if possible. An example of where that is not happening is in the case of Standards Australia. I believe it is a not-for-profit that does work to improve the quality of goods produced in the country and for the safety of the public. However, the cost of access to those standards is prohibitive for the general public. Therefore, the public has no way to determine if a product they are buying is up to standard! That makes no sense! This is an example of privitization that has gone off track. In the US, DARPA has (or had when I lived there) a program to release Defense Department developed discoveries/inventions for use by groups like schools and universities. If the research ended up as valuable methodologies or new products, that was a good thing and benefited society in general. Australia might consider that if it doesn't already out of CSIRO. I must say that the Australian and State Governments are in the main doing a good job in using the new online info distribution tools. Keep going!