Endorsing the Australian Digital Inclusion Alliance Digital Inclusion Call to Action

From Andrew Whelan, Project Leader, on behalf of the ADIA Collective Voice Team

Hello ADIA-ers,

Over the past 12 months the ADIA Collective Voice team, which has broad industry and sector representation, has developed a Call to Action that:

  • highlights the current state of play for digital inclusion
  • identifies priority segments of the community that are currently underserved, and
  • calls for specific interventions to address the issues identified.

While 2.5 million Australians remain offline and a further 5 million are lacking basic digital skills, the time to act is now.

We have sought and received much great feedback along the way, in line with Collective Voice Guiding Principles for Communication and would like to thank everyone for their hard work and input.

The main issues of the Federal Election are somewhat set. Despite being an important issue, digital inclusion is unlikely to be a major election focus for any of the parties. Given timings and the advice we have taken, the Collective Voice team has decided that the most effective way to make our voice heard is to have a letter ready to pass through to the relevant Ministers, shadows and other targeted people AFTER the new government is sworn in.

In the meantime we will continue to reinforce the efforts of others who are calling for similar things. For example, ACCAN recently ran a well-executed campaign for broadband affordability in line with what the ADIA is calling for, so we were able to endorse their submission, adding weight to their call on affordability.

We have now finalised the consultation/input phase and are calling for individuals and organisations to endorse the letter that contains our arguments and call to action. As indicated, the letter is planned to be sent (and followed up) after the election to a range of key politicians.

Endorsement means supporting:

  • the letter
  • the overarching call for a national strategy to address digital exclusion that should particularly address:
    • affordability, digital ability and inclusive access
    • with particular consideration of five priority segments/populations
  • the specific calls to action, being:
    • a national awareness campaign for the need for digital inclusion
    • the development of a framework to set and measure digital inclusion targets, and
    • a consultation process with lead organisations from each of the priority segments

The letter refers to an attachment that has some further details and proposals that could be included in a national strategy, but these are provided as suggestions at this stage.  Endorsement is endorsement of the letter only, not every suggested proposal in the attachment.

The more logos and names we can gather, the stronger the call will be.

Please let our Alliance Facilitator John Huigen know by May 13th if you/your organisation will formally endorse the Call to Action. 

Again, I would like to thank my hard-working colleagues in the Collective Voice team for their insights and contributions and everyone across the ADIA network who have provided input.

Regards,
Andy

Andrew Whelan

 

DOWNLOAD THE CALL TO ACTION LETTER

Author: ADIA  |  Size: 230kb  |  PDF  |  Published: April 2019

DOWNLOAD THE ADIA STRATEGY DOCUMENT

Author: ADIA  |  Size: 2MB  |  PPTX file (Powerpoint) |  Published: April 2019