Labor government wastes thousands on domain registration
I’m not going to pretend like I know a lot about Queensland politics. Like their beer, rugby and borderline stupid disdain for fluoride clean water, most of Queensland doesn’t make sense.
One thing however is clear, the state government appears to be swimming in funds and have way too much time on their hands.
I mean really, every time Queensland has an election does the entire country need to see gargantuan sized premium web ads plastered all over every news outlet in the country of botox loaded Anna Bligh?
So gargantuan that I can see every photoshopped-out wrinkle? Come on the woman is almost fifty, the makeup industry is a ways off from making old women look like teenage jailbait yet.
The latest example of Queensland government splurging involves the revelation today they own thirty eight websites in an effort to counter “nasty websites”.
Because you know, we wouldn’t want anyone making fun of the government or anything. Oh no.
Under former premier Peter Beattie, the slogan “Queensland the smart state” was introduced in an effort to “to promote the state as a centre of knowledge-based industries and education”.
Yeah I’m not sure people think ‘intellectual think tank” when they think Queensland but apparently the government aren’t taking any chances. In an effort to combat criticism and prevent the slogan being ridiculed the government has registered Queensland the dumb state along with thirty eight other domains at a cost of $1464 a year, or $43 a domain name.
Domains can be registered on the internet for a couple of dollars to why the government is paying $43 annually for a domain name is beyond me.
The domains themselves are pointed at parked websites which just contain advertising. These sorts of pages require zero maintenance, take twenty seconds to set up and require minimal hosting costs. Yet on top of the $43 a year the Queensland government are paying, additional operating and maintenance costs are allocated to the thirty eight domain names.
Really? Maintenance costs on parked domains that require zero maintenance?
The government has refused to disclose maintenance cost so presumably it’s an utterly embarrassingly high number.
The whois information for queensland-the-dumb-state.com points to a PO Box in Sunnyvale California and does not list any hosting details;
Creation Date........ 2006-07-01 Registration Date.... 2006-10-10 Expiry Date.......... 2010-07-01 Organisation Name.... Queensland Department of the Premier and Cabinet Organisation Address. PO Box 61359 Organisation Address. Organisation Address. Sunnyvale Organisation Address. 94088 Organisation Address. CA Organisation Address. US
One thing is for certain though, the Australian taxpayer is being taken for a bloody big ride.
Whilst queensland-the-dumb-state.com might be controlled by the government sites like queenslandthedumbstate.com, which in my opinion are much more likely to be entered into browser url bars (seriously hypens in urls is so passe) have already been snatched up.
Queenslandthedumbstate is currently redirecting to AJ Web Solutions and seems to be under construction featuring a dorky picture of presumably the owner and not much else. It does contain a mobile number and ABN though which belongs to an Andrew John Boyd who presumably has nothing to do with the government.
Clearly snatching up domain names isn’t foolproof or by any means effective, so why the hell is the taxpayer bankrolling this stupid initiative?
It appears the Queensland government aren’t alone and $1464 is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to government domains. Child Safety and Sports (a natural pairing if ever I saw one) minister Phil Reeves also revealed today that Sports and Recreation Services maintain eleven domains that simply contain links to free public websites at a staggering cost of $146,816 annually.
How in the holy hell parked websites that need no maintenance can rack up such a large bill is anyone’s guess. The Australian government lists nineteen national departments with a huge number of additional individual state departments.
Even if just a percentage of these departments are maintaining cheap as chips websites but paying through the nose for them one can only wonder just how many millions of dollars are being wasted annually.
With such a ludicrously small grasp on internet websites and the seemingly unashamed matter of not caring how ripped off the taxpayer is over domain registration, is it any wonder the Labor government are staring down the barrel of nation wide censorship and a National Broadband Network that won’t be available until 2090?
Old people in government, the internet and taxpayer funding are never a good marriage and I for one am ready for a divorce.
Leave a Reply...