Stories about: Australian Taxation Office

Griffith University's mainframe training joint venture with Global Online Learning has come to an end as the provider moves closer to government departments in Canberra, which are recruiting more big iron skills.

Lack of a business-grade accounting system tailored for Australia's onerous taxation system has long kept even the most die-hard Linux fans tied to Windows, but all that is set to change with the open source SYMBOL Accounting.

The NSW Office of State Revenue (OSR) is taking a tough stance against Microsoft's decision to make an enterprise edition of Windows Vista only available to companies that have signed on to its Software Assurance program. The tax collection agency has declared it would rather switch desktop operating systems than lock itself into Microsoft's licensing regime.

Despite its strong ties to proprietary software vendors, the Australian Taxation Office has finally dipped its toes into open source by establishing a Linux-based system for information analytics.

More leaks have emerged from the tight cocoon of self-imposed silence surrounding Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's activities in Australia, with three Cabinet ministers including Treasurer Peter Costello now confirmed to have met Ballmer for discussions in Sydney yesterday.

The man in charge of enforcing whole-of-government IT cohesion, Special Minister of State Senator Eric Abetz, has publicly backed calls from Federal Privacy Commissioner Karen Curtis for a wider review of Australia's privacy laws.

IT infrastructure services giant EDS has drawn a line in the sand over the way it intends to drum up new infrastructure business, with selective sourcing, open source and IBM definitely not part of the equation.

The federal government has no plans to support legislation which requires open source software solutions to be included in all future departmental ICT contracts, and will continue to uphold a neutral stance on open source software, the National Office of Information Economy (NOIE) has stated.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has broken a clear promise to provide a Unix/Linux client for its new Electronic Commerce Interface software. As a result, Unix/Linix groups are not only planning to lobby for a change to the decision but also seek to establish an open communication between people and government community organisation.