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Australian Report On Progress Towards the Paperless Trading GoalsIn APECˇ¦s Blueprint for Action on Electronic Commerce
access to over 60,000 resources including:
• a comprehensive database of over 800 programs and services offered by Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments, industry associations and chambers of commerce;
• advice on setting up and running a business, including legal issues and licensing requirements;
• topics such as taxation, record-keeping, superannuation, occupational health and safety, employment, workplace relations, intellectual property protection and importing and exporting;
• links to important government and other websites, including State Government online business services such as Victoriaˇ¦s Maxi and South Australiaˇ¦s Bizgate;
• A growing collection of mandatory Commonwealth, State and Territory Codes of Practice; and
• Applications for Endorsed Supplier Arrangements and government IT contracting arrangements.
The BEP also offers a secure, reliable and private environment for businesses to complete online transactions and registrations with the Australian Taxation Office, the Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business and other government agencies. New transactions are added regularly.
BEP Site usage
The BEP website has experienced significant increases in usage since its launch in July 1998. The BEP site currently provides about 150,000 pages of information to users each month ˇV in November 1999, it was over 200,000 pages. Since its launch there have been over 2 million successful requests for information from users. The increase in usage can be seen in that 1 million of these requests occurred between November 1999 and January 2000. In the rankings for the top 100 Australian government websites for the week ending 9 April 2000, the BEP site was ranked no.6, and was ranked no.38 for Australian business sites for the same period.
Electronic Payments on the BEP
In order to facilitate online financial transactions between business and government, the Australian Government has established the Internet Payments Panel. Agencies at all levels of government who wish to set up systems which accept payments over the internet can select suppliers of internet payments products and services from the organisations appointed to the Panel, instead of having to go through a lengthy tendering process. The Panel was set up with assistance from the Office for Government Online (OGO), the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE), the Defence Signals Directorate and the Australian Government Solicitor.
There are now 34 companies on the Internet Payments Panel, offering products and services ranging from complete in-house solutions, to related services such as site hosting and project management. Many of the Panel members are SMEs.
Australian Business Register Online
The Business Entry Point Management Branch in the Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, in conjunction with the Australian Taxation Office, is developing the Australian Business Register Online (ABR Online) which will be accessible through the BEP website. The Australian Business Register has been created to identify and hold basic information about all business entities trading in Australia. This project represents a significant step in promoting the use of electronic commerce, because businesses and agencies will be able to use the search facility on the BEP site to check the details of an organisation [next page]