The issue of a Smart Card for public health services is back on the agenda in Australia.

It seems like a no brainer to me to consolidate various social services and entitlements onto one identity card to improve management of public funds and reduce fraud.

The Liberal opposition has accussed Kevin Rudd of backflipping. There is no doubt that this was a pretty controversial policy prior to the election. Both parties did their best to distance themselves from the idea in the run up to the election, the Labour Party more so (since it wasn’t their idea).

This week, Shadow Human Services Minister, Senator Helen Coonan, said:“The Howard government invested millions of dollars getting together the expertise, systems and technology necessary for the smart card to beat welfare cheats.”In other words, the Howard Government wasted millions because this came to nothing.

The previous Government failed to engage the numerous stakeholders on this issue, they failed to design a card that did the job required of it but also addressed some of the issues raised by its opponents, primarily related to privacy and personal information.

They invited the IT community to pitch to tender for a card that had no design – they hadn’t even decided whether it would contain a photo of the cardholder or what sort of biometric information would be stored on it.

The previous Government need to engage stakeholders to design a card that everyone could agree with and then – more importantly – they need to SELL the concept to the community. They failed.  I think the Smart Card is a bit of a no brainer and I hope the new Government actually starts the conversation to ensure that the desired outcomes are controlled and delivered. This is a big issue for the community but getting everyone facing in the right direction and ‘on board’ is essential.

Tags: , australia, coonan, rudd, smart card