Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Griffith for her question, the member for Grayndler for this question and also the member for Bennelong for his question. I have to say that I counted 15 questions from the member for Griffith, about 10 from the member for Grayndler and another one from the member for Bennelong. Let me work progressively through those.

I will start with the member for Bennelong's question, which related to his electorate of Bennelong and the innovation district, Macquarie Park, which I was delighted to visit only a couple of weeks ago. It is truly one of the emerging innovation districts in this country which offers phenomenal potential. As the minister for cities, it is really wonderful to see the work that is going on there.

An innovation district is something that is extremely important to the future of this country. The reality is that we are seeing all around the world countries gaining enormous competitive advantage from the development of these districts, which have certain very clear characteristics. One of those characteristics is public transport—and I do want to come back to the question from the member for Grayndler about public transport; the truth is we are investing enormous amounts into public transport at the moment. But you also have to see mixed use—this is residential, commercial and even light industrial work; and that is absolutely what we are seeing in Macquarie Park—and clusters of small prosperous businesses. This is something that the coalition understands, I think, far better than those opposite: if you do not get those clusters of growing businesses, you do not get successful innovation districts. All of that we are seeing in Macquarie Park, and it truly is one of the great illustrations of what is possible in this country. It has a long way to go, and I think everyone who is in that area knows it has a long way to go.

The member's specific question was about the digital transformation of government, and this is something I have been passionate about for many years and wrote about well before I came into the current role, because every government in this era needs to be able to spend and deliver more with less. That is true across the Western world. We all face tough fiscal constraints. Many of those opposite imagine that there is a money tree somewhere from which you can get lots of money and spend it on whatever is your latest pet program. However, the reality of the modern era is that is simply not possible.

One way that we can spend our money more effectively is through the better use of information technology. Not only that; we can get better outcomes. Again and again, we have seen modelling in the private sector of how this is made possible. In government, we have a very strong focus on how digitisation can actually deliver benefits. We know Deloitte's have told us that there is a couple of billion dollars per annum up for grabs just in efficiency gains—and that does not even extend to other significant benefits in compliance, better policy and better outcomes. Of course in my area of responsibility, the now Digital Transformation Office is absolutely focused on that prize, that opportunity. Only last week, I was delighted to announce further changes: a strengthening of that agency and a further strengthening of its focus on that digital opportunity that I have outlined.

We are making good progress in particular areas, and one of the things we have seen is that relatively modest changes can have very big impacts. One of the examples that I am particularly proud of is that we recently invested $5.4 million into the next generation of the program to improve the myGov service, which included 18 short-term fixes. A team comprising the Department of Human Services and what is now the Digital Transformation Agency came up with 18 short-term fixes and immediately implemented the highest impacting of those fixes. Anyone who used myGov in the past will know that there was real frustration with it. However, since these changes we have seen a doubling of the number of people using the service on a month-to-month basis, a doubling of the number of people using the service during this year's tax period, a halving in the number of people who had trouble logging on, a 37 per cent fall in forgotten usernames, a 53 per cent fall in incorrect security codes and a 54 per cent decrease in password resets. These are practical changes that are having a big impact, resulting in a more effective government service, with benefits for the government and benefits for citizens.

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