The Coalition WasteWatch Committee Chairman, Jonathan O’Dea, has targeted the State Labor Government over waste and mismanagement of computer and IT resources.
“Put simply, the State Labor Government’s inefficiencies across some 294 New South Wales Government managed organisations, allows substantial duplication of computer related resources at great expense to the taxpayer,” Mr O’Dea said.
“While the recent federal Gershon Report has called for a consolidated approach to data centre management, the NSW Labor Government appears to have done little.
“The government should be consolidating its data centres and centralising core and non-core applications into a few facilities, potentially in regional areas, which could be used as central repositories,” Mr O’Dea said.
“The cash-strapped Government appears to ignore the significant cost savings this initiative would bring through reduced maintenance, rent, 24 x 7 power & cooling costs, software & hardware, security & fire protection systems, and relevant IT staff.
“It seems State Labor also fails to see the environmental benefits of consolidation through a whole of government approach,” Mr O’Dea said.
“The White Paper on ‘Green’ Solutions for Federal Data Centre Consolidation claims US data centres in 2006 consumed 1.5% of the nation’s electricity and predicted the figure could double by 2011. The figures have been broadly supported by Gartner Consulting, which claims information communications technology (including data centres) consume 2% of the world’s greenhouse gases – the same as the aviation industry.
“If this Government is truly committed to addressing climate change, a simple step to reduce its greenhouse gases output is to consolidate its data centres,” the WasteWatch Chairman said.
“Today I asked a written question in Parliament regarding the number of data centers the Government runs across all departments and to what extent there is coordinated management. I also asked how the Government is targeting waste and duplication in this area and what future plans are in place for improved efficiencies.
