Freeing up the digital Economy - Spatially

Geoff just posted an interesting entry, Contribution of Spatial Information to the National Economy.

The linked report about Australia highlights the 'dumb' (my own interpretation) situation with regards to Spatial Data in Australia. Spatial data like that should be free, period.

The existing situation is just crazy, earlier this year google was sued and paid about a million bucks for publishing co-ordinates of Australian locations via google maps. I can't find a link for this, so it's hearsay, but it paints a pretty lame picture!

It looks like the Aussie Internet Filtering debacle is close to a end, the word on the street that Labour will let it die in the new year.

Lets make sure it happens, get out and protest this weekend! I'm gonna.

Why not abandon the trials now, redirect that funding to our spatial data agencies and do something positive and progressive, rather than attempting to introduce regressive ideas? That was John Howard's speciality...

Some how I expected Truffles to be a bit more modern, lets face it, he's in dire need of a new policy which he can stand by for more than a sound grab for the nightly news!