Digital Divide

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:36): Equity and inequity are issues that have received a little more recognition and focus lately. During the lunch break, I was listening to the Senate, and the marriage equality bill got up on the second reading on the voices, so I think that is a really good start. I think now they are bogged down in the amendments, but I will not go there. As I said, the issue of equality and inequity is something we all have at the forefront of our mind. We look at funding for education and the issues surrounding Gonski, water and the River Murray, homelessness and affordable housing, just to name a few.

Also, discussion and debate centre around analyses about inequitable outcomes of globalisation where the rich have definitely got richer but a lot of the population have not done so well. Interestingly and perversely, many equity-type debates and campaigns these days are conducted online through Facebook, Twitter, email, Instagram and all the other platforms and technologies that connect us and let us talk about these things to each other and, in many cases, influence each other. Sadly, not everyone can participate, or wants to, in these campaigns and social movements, and I would argue that this is another form of inequity, labelled the Digital Divide.

I have been interested to follow up on this issue and have noticed that documents have been published fairly recently looking at Australia and South Australia, for example, the Roy Morgan research publication—and this is through their Centre for Social Impact—entitled Measuring Australia's Digital Divide. The measurement used to determine this was the Australian Digital Inclusion Index (ADII). In March 2016, Australia had an ADII reading of 54.5 per cent, whereas in South Australia we were rated at 51.6 per cent, the second lowest in Australia. Tasmania sits at 48.2 per cent.

The factors they considered in their study, which was over three years, were region (urban, country, remote areas), demographics, income, paid employment, age, disability, ability, education level (one of the factors there was less than secondary level) and the level of expenditure on technology. That, along with the ABS statistics of 2016, says that 86 per cent of Australian households have access to the internet, and those who do not have access are increasingly being left out of the world and missing out on a whole lot of services, information and participating in some of the debates that are happening.

One good thing about not being on the internet or not participating in that world is the number of scams that have been reported in Australia. An organisation called Scamwatch says that 42.7 per cent of scams were either delivered by email or on the internet in 2016. I guess there are reasons to be cheerful, and that may be one of the few benefits of not being able to access or not wanting to access digital communication. Again on the positive side, it would also mean that one would have more time to actually get on with living rather than looking at a screen all day and participating in Facebook and all the other forums that do include some conversations with people but certainly do not go to the whole population.

Many people who come into the electorate office are unhappy at having to pay a premium for having paper bills, whether they be telephone bills or power bills. I think that we should get behind the Keep Me Posted campaign because it is determined to argue that people should be able to get financial information in any form they request.