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Page 38 Senate Monday, 27 February 2017 Mr McKenzie: Not to my knowledge. Dr Heriot: I have not requested any support for it other than the issuing. Senator BERNARDI: But it was provided by the department. Dr Heriot: It was. Senator BERNARDI: But it is not supported by the department. Dr Heriot: Well, I have never requested support for it. Senator BERNARDI: Okay. That might solve the question. Thank you. CHAIR: Thank you, Senator Bernardi. Senator Leyonhelm. Dr Heriot: Sorry, Chair, it was in my period as acting secretary. Senator BERNARDI: I accept that. I just wanted to find out if there was anyone else as well. CHAIR: Senator Leyonhelm. Senator LEYONHJELM: Thank you. I just have a quick question and follow-up to previous estimates in relation to wi-fi provision and wi-fi in electorate offices. I think Mr McKenzie might be the appropriate person. At last estimates I inquired about this and, to be frank, I got blank looks. The question is: is there any attention being paid to wi-fi in electorate offices which is not restricted to simply DPS provided equipment? Mr McKenzie: Yes, there is,. We raised this matter, I believe, in the last estimates and it was indicated at the PICTAB meeting. I know there were people in and out that meeting, so, Senator, I am not sure if you are actually present at the time that that was discussed. I indicated that one of the things we are looking at as part of the same project, the end-user computing project, is BYOD devices. Parliamentarians and their staff who have APH accounts will be able to bring personal devices into an electorate office and use them as a BYOD. We are looking to enhance that capability. The issue of public access is a little bit more problematic. I can go into that in a bit more detail if you wish. Senator LEYONHJELM: The issue is that, if I have a visitor to my office here in Parliament House and they wish to show me something, provide some information to me, and require internet access, they can use the free wifi service available in Parliament House. If that same person with that same information to share with me comes to my electorate office, they cannot—unless they use their own phone as a modem or something like that—use the wifi service provided in the electorate office. Yet it is not a major issue to provide two wifi services from the same device. It is a relatively common thing. One could be restricted to DPS equipment. One could be made available, even with a password, to visitors. That is why I am asking whether it is under consideration. If it is not, why not? Mr McKenzie: It is being examined. There are a number of complexities to offering public wifi in electorate offices. They are not technical. Technically it is not a major challenge for us to offer that as a service. The wifi within Parliament House is offered in the same way as it is in many public institutions in Canberra, such as the National Library and so forth, so we offer it as a service to visitors and to tourists alike. When looking at wifi within the electorate offices, we have a number of challenges around security. Parliament House is quite contained. The wireless signal, as you know, does bleed beyond the boundary of the building. So within Parliament House, when Parliament House shuts down at 5 o'clock, the wireless signal only extends out past the boundary of the building a short way. It would be very evident if someone was sitting in a car or outside Parliament House for a long period of time trying to use the wifi to compromise the network. I am sure they would be noticed and identified and moved on by the AFP. Electorate offices are often in very public areas. They are often in shopping malls. They are in, often, areas out in the public. So we would not have that same visibility if someone sat outside for a long period of time or set up a relay or had the opportunity over a long period of time to try and use the public wifi to compromise the network. There is another thing we would have to take into account. And these are discussions we can bring back to PICTAB, because when we had the discussion at PICTAB with the available members the feedback we received was that public wifi was being requested because of the use of BYOD. But if it is something that does need to be considered further, we can take it back to PICTAB. One of the challenges would also be around essentially launching around 250 additional public wifi hotspots around the country, which puts us almost in the vein of being an internet service provider, and the impact that might have on other businesses surrounding the electorate offices. Senator LEYONHJELM: Just a final point on this. A good example of what might be provided is what the airlines provide in their lounge, which is a daily changing password. I am not sure that I accept your analogy that FINANCE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION LEGISLATION COMMITTEE
Monday, 27 February 2017 Senate Page 39 it is equivalent to a public hotspot. If the airlines in their lounges are providing a public hotspot, well, I suppose the analogy applies. But it is not as if just anybody can log in. Mr McKenzie: No. We would have to look at that and look at the resource overhead of managing that— issuing daily passwords, changing them, whether it is the same password for every electorate office, whether electorate offices could set their own passwords. If there was the need to have a password added to infrastructure, that would be a cost and an overhead which we would have to evaluate. Currently in Parliament House it is purely open wifi. If you walk in, you do not require any authentication. We do, essentially, offer a hotspot. The current infrastructure supports that. To add a password layer on top of that would require some investigation. CHAIR: Senator Leyonhjelm, are you coming to the end of this? Senator LEYONHJELM: Yes, I am close to the end of this. So I am going to ask you at the next estimates how this is progressing. I am hoping that I hear some news about progress. Mr McKenzie: If I can take offline and have an offline conversation to understand the needs of you and other parliamentarians, we can better come back with a response. Senator LEYONHJELM: Thank you. CHAIR: Senator Kitching Senator KITCHING: Ms Croke, I think you might be the most appropriate person to ask about enterprise bargaining in DPS. You were asked some questions in October at the supplementary budget estimates session. I understand that subsequent to that estimates round the agreement has been voted down by 73 per cent of the 782 staff voting no. Can you confirm this? Ms Croke: Yes, that is correct; 73 per cent, 573 staff out of 887, did vote no. Senator KITCHING: I also understand there were several errors made during the DPS enterprise agreement voting process which occurred in December. For example, is it correct that the access period commenced on Wednesday, 7 December when in fact the voting period was due to commence on Wednesday, 14 December? Ms Croke: We did have an adjustment in the access period. Senator KITCHING: But it was not just an adjustment; it was incorrect. Ms Croke: We delayed the period. On 2 December employees were advised of the intention to offer the proposal, subject to it being approved by the APS Commissioner. We put the proposed replacement enterprise agreement—sorry, I am just getting my dates right here. Senator KITCHING: What were the reasons the commissioner gave? Ms Croke: The commissioner did not vary the access period; we did. The problem was that we had put the proposed replacement enterprise agreement to staff. That had been presented to all staff at a meeting on 6 December. On 8 December the access period restarted because there was a technical error in the form of the agreement we had posted on the intranet and the internet. As a result of that ballot period, dates were changed. They were originally going to be from 14 December to 20 December. They were changed to 16 December to 21 December. Senator KITCHING: So all staff received an email on 8 December to say that the voting period would need to recommence because of errors in the proposed agreement? Ms Croke: It was a technical error with respect to the version and the way we had presented the version. The difficulty is that the version you present to the staff at that point in whatever form you put it, even if it has 'draft' across it, is the form that becomes your final agreement. Senator KITCHING: But it was about the wording, wasn't it? It was not just because someone had written 'draft' across the agreement. So it was a technical error but not a technical error because someone had put 'draft' incorrectly? Ms Croke: That was one of the things we fixed. There were very minor technical errors and as a result we— Senator KITCHING: It was the wording, though, wasn't it? Ms Croke: Yes. Senator KITCHING: That is not a technical error in an enterprise agreement. The wording has to be precise. Ms Croke: It does, and that is what we were correcting. As I said, that delayed the access period and the voting period was changed—the ballot period. Senator KITCHING: I am told the ballot question put to the staff was, 'Do you vote in favour of the Department of Parliamentary Services enterprise agreement 2017 ballot?' Is that correct? FINANCE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION LEGISLATION COMMITTEE
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