Virtual meeting to reduce travel

[Libby]

FINANCE Minister Lindsay Tanner hopes to save more than $250 million a year currently spent on air travel by government members and employees by using a high-definition video-conferencing system.

The system will be installed in more than 20 government offices, will span thousands of kilometres and reach all Australian states and territories.

Mr Tanner said that for capital expenditure of about $6 million and $4 million in annual running costs, substantial savings would be achieved in money now spent with domestic airlines.

Government business could be conducted more efficiently and there would be gains in cost and retention rates for people who leave because of travel pressures, he said. The system, called TelePresence, uses broadband telecommunications to create on panels of large video screens a virtual boardroom in which people in remote offices appear, as if on the other side of the table, in life size.

There is no time lag between the audio and video signals, a problem with earlier teleconferencing systems. "It's as if you are in the same room with people hundreds of kilometres away," Mr Tanner said.

The system will be fully installed by the end of the year and will then be one of the largest government telepresence deployments in the world.

Mr Tanner conceded it would take some time and a degree of culture change among public servants, but the benefits for the Government were potentially "hugely beneficial".

Telstra, which uses the Cisco system in its Melbourne and Sydney business centres and within its own organisation, will install 13 three-screen systems and seven single-screen systems linking seven government offices.

These will include the Council of Australian Governments, the prime ministerial and cabinet offices, Parliament House and the offices of premiers and chief minister agencies in every state and territory.

Les Williamson, Cisco's vice-president in Australia and New Zealand, said his company had the system deployed in more than 360 offices around the world.

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