Qld ICT campaign had no effect: Schwarten

Queensland ICT Minister Robert Schwarten claimed today that the industry lobbying campaign carried out by the state's ICT Workgroup during Queensland's last election didn't have any effect.

ICT Workgroup members at the Premier's debate (Credit: Longhaus)

"I don't think that their campaign had any effect whatsoever in Queensland," Schwarten told ZDNet.com.au. "No one took any notice of it in the broader community."

The Workgroup, made up of a number of prominent IT players such as the Australian Computer Society and the Australian Information Industry Association, placed full page advertisements in major newspapers in the lead up to the election. The advertisements demanded that Premier Anna Bligh and then National Leader Lawrence Springborg support the industry. The industry also turned up to the debate between the two wearing red and yellow T-shirts.

[The campaign] sunk without a trace

Queensland ICT Minister Robert Schwarten

Yet Schwarten didn't think that those T-shirts had left ripples on the state's mentality. "[The campaign] sunk without a trace," he said. He believed that the industry already had a high profile in the government and the advertisements hadn't changed that. No extra funding had been channelled into the industry as a result, he said.

The question the campaign had raised, according to Schwarten, was whether working groups funded by the government should be used in the political arena. Although he believed the working group could lobby, he thought that only privately funded organisations had the right to get stuck into political debate. The working group was "not the right organisation" to have carried out the action it did, according to Schwarten.

The Workgroup was formed in 2005 and the ICT Industry Workgroup executive office in 2007. The executive office is jointly funded by the Queensland Government and the ICT industry, according to the government.