Abstract
The decline of regional Australia in terms of wealth and population during the two decades since 1980 has compelled the Federal Government to intervene. In 1997 the Australian Federal Government devoted in excess of $A460 million to a grant award scheme called the Regional Telecommunication Infrastructure Fund (RTIF) in which regional communities identified local telecommunication problems and applied for funds to correct them. Our project examines, through the lens of a conceptual framework extended from and informed by Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP), the effectiveness of the mechanism of this and similar schemes. The primary purpose of this paper is to present a study of the experience of Ballarat in relation to the Australian RTIF programme.
Highlights
Political and economic change, globalisation, economic rationalist policies, and retreat from the Keynesian style of economic management are amongst the changes and influences that have eroded the capacity of governments to administer in the traditional way [26,40]
The Australian Federal Government sought to contribute to the operationalisation of its vision of a modernised regional telecommunications system through an intervention strategy consisting of a grant award scheme: the Rural Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (RTIF), later renamed Networking the Nation (NTN) [12,13]
The focus of our overall research project concerns the former and may be defined as the effect of alignment between and within Federal Government policy and community planning and strategy development and implementation. For this purpose we have developed a conceptual model – and, on the basis of this, an analytic framework – using principles derived from a body of knowledge known as Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP)
Summary
Globalisation, economic rationalist policies, and retreat from the Keynesian style of economic management are amongst the changes and influences that have eroded the capacity of governments to administer in the traditional way [26,40]. New Regionalism is a notion which seizes upon the potential of regions as economically viable and self-governing/self-determining entities It is, a rather loosely defined concept, and subject to various interpretations and implementations. The focus of our overall research project concerns the former and may be defined as the effect of alignment between and within Federal Government policy and community planning and strategy development and implementation. For this purpose we have developed a conceptual model – and, on the basis of this, an analytic framework – using principles derived from a body of knowledge known as Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP). We briefly define the theoretical underpinnings of our work and our analytic framework, present a study of the Victorian region “Ballarat” 1 and its interaction with the Federal Government’s Regional Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (RTIF) programme
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