​Australian Parliament Digital Strategy to be finalised this year

The Department of Parliamentary Services will soon be finalising the Australian Parliament Digital Strategy, which will set out what the "place on the hill" will look like over the coming years.

Speaking at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo on the Gold Coast on Monday, the department's CIO Antony Stinziani said the strategy will specifically address the needs of Parliament, despite being only a few pages in size.

"My challenge over the next couple of months is to finalise the Australian Parliament Digital Strategy, it really is going to look at what's that place going to look like in the next three-five years," he explained.

"The strategy itself is really going to be document of about a dozen pages. It's going to really separate the why and the what."

The strategy, which will be pushed out early next year, is expected to provide Canberra with a "real description" of what it should look like and why.

"What we've done -- and some might say we've overcooked the consultation -- so workshops with the people who run the Senate, the people who run the House of Reps, the people who run the department itself," Stinziani said.

"We've also had one-on-one conversations with about 40 parliamentarians ... on how they see themselves working."

In compiling the strategy, Stinziani also said there has been influence from whole-of-government policy, security, and the direction of the ICT industry as well.

"Our core business is Parliament, we're not a publishing house at the end of the day," he said.

In discussing the risk involved in sending workloads to the cloud, Stinziani said it's now an "old" conversation, saying instead talk around data and information, and who has access to it, needs to occur when detailing a future digital strategy.

He said he's been lucky to have the support of Parliamentarians, with the biggest challenge the IT staff.

Disclosure: Asha Barbaschow travelled to Gartner Symposium/ITxpo as a guest of Gartner.

RELATED COVERAGE

Jobs and Small Business to update 15 year-old employment system

The deadline is 2020.

Canberra to deliver digital transformation strategy in early 2019

The minister responsible for digital transformation has said it will allow the government to be held accountable for technology-based decisions.

Australia claims it's a 'leader' in digital government

While heat over My Health Record continues, the Coalition is promoting a report from the UN that gave it second spot in a report on digital government.

The 5 biggest challenges to digital transformation and how to overcome them (TechRepublic)

While the digital experience is vital to a company's success, it also comes with many obstacles, according to a Riverbed report.