Government & Web3 – Digital Identity on the Blockchain is Happening in Australia
Interview with The Honourable Victor Dominello
Interview with the Honourable Victor Dominello – Minister for Customer Service. The NSW government is a world leader in “citizen-centric government”. Find out about some of remarkable technology-firsts from the NSW government including the digital drivers licence and data analytics projects that have put money back in the pockets of citizens literally. The interview really takes off when the Minister talks about the launch of the blockchain-based Building Trust Index – imagine a digital twin of all buildings on the blockchain so you can see all the products and vendors that were involved in building that building. We then cover what is likely to be the Minister’s greatest legacy, a government-backed digital identity project based on Web3 architecture – due to be delivered in February 2023. With this innovation, every citizen will truly own their personal data and be able to completely control who gets access to what elements of your data.
Transcript
Nick Abrahams:
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the show. And this week, I am delighted to have the opportunity to showcase really my home state and a state that I’m very proud of in terms of the way our government has really focused on becoming a world leader in what’s known as citizen centric government. And so joining me today is the honorable Victor Dominello. Minister, welcome to the show.
Victor Dominello:
Thanks, Nick.
Nick Abrahams:
Now, minister, you have a wealth of portfolio responsibilities. You’re the member for Ryde, you’re the Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government, Minister for Small Business, but also the Minister for Fair Trading. Not a lot of spare hours in that day by the sounds of things.
Victor Dominello:
Not at the moment. Not when Parliament’s sitting in particular. It’s a full brief.
Nick Abrahams:
Very good. Well, look, thank you. As you know, I’ve been a big fan of what you have done and what your government has done over years to really focus in on citizen centric government and also how technology can help us. But maybe could you just give us your, I guess, philosophy around the role of government and particularly as Minister for Customer Service?
Victor Dominello:
Well, the philosophy stems in a analogy or a metaphor, it’s in relation to the solar system. Governments are normally the center of that solar system, they are normally the sun. And we expect people to evolve and revolve around us. And when I say us, well, we’ve got lots of moving parts in the sun, lots of agencies inside it. And that’s not customer centric, it’s in fact a very bad experience. Because it means that people have to move and allocate their time, their precious, precious time around the machinations of government.
What we try to do with Department of Customer Service and then therefore more broadly in government, is to flip the equation so that governments and their agencies evolve and revolve around the customer, around the individual. And that’s really been the heart of the journey now really since we started Service New South Wales in 2013. But we’ve really accelerated that when we’ve launched the digital driver’s license and then the Department of Customer Service in 2019 and then a hyper acceleration throughout COVID.
Nick Abrahams:
Yep. Well, fantastic. You’ve always been a big promoter of technology and the opportunities for technology to help us. And I know we hear a lot of negative about technology, but you touched briefly there on digital driver’s license. But could you talk a little bit about some of the successes that you’ve had in terms of the application of technology to make of citizens’ lives easier?
Victor Dominello:
Well, obviously, the digital driver’s license is the thing that most people will visualize. 75% option so far, which is just extraordinary. On the back of that platform, we designed big, [inaudible 00:03:11] small. So on the back of digital driver’s license, we quickly pivoted in the pandemic to the QR check-ins. And again, that was a really important feature to guide us through the pandemic, high success rate there. We again, pivoted on that platform to issue Dine & Discover vouchers and a whole lot of other vouchers, which other governments were saying, “Spend the money, give us your receipts, make an application, we’ll give you the check in the mail.”
We were essentially having digital currency through QR code, which to my knowledge, has never been done before, which, but again, extraordinary uptake. Even before that, I was in Parliament the other day basically doing a review of the comprehensive third party insurance, CTP [inaudible 00:03:58]. That was basically a data piece. And we launched that in 2017, 2018. And what we’ve seen is super profits, [inaudible 00:04:08] super profits come back down to where they should be because it’s a mandatory scheme. We’ve seen premiums come down to levels we haven’t seen for 10 years. So this is an example of using data digital and in customer centric policy settings to really drive profound outcomes.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. I got to say, the CTP, we all experience that. It was such a rare situation where to see your insurance premiums go down.
Victor Dominello:
Yeah.
Nick Abrahams:
We don’t see that, so…
Victor Dominello:
It defies insurance gravity where normally, everything goes up, but for it to come down, it was a… Reflecting on it over five years, it’s good to see that the principles work.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, yeah. And I got to say with vouchers too, it seemed like… It was pretty… Well, it was just an odd time during COVID. But to see those vouchers sort of pop into the app and to have it work seamlessly, frankly, and the fact that I’ve got parents and so forth who were able to use those simply and that’s obviously where the proof is, isn’t it? That it actually works. When you pull it out and you find it on the app and it actually works.
Victor Dominello:
And you’re right, Nick, that’s the magic. To have a seamless experience. Even now, I see beaters come to me all the time in relation to ideas and I’ll try it out. And I said, “Well, hold on, that’s taking me two minutes,” and two minutes is two minutes. But I’m thinking that’s not a great experience. Unless it’s a truly a great experience, I’m not going to use it again. And that’s where government’s got to get their head space in. It’s got to be in making a seamless experience with a whole lot of trust built around it.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. And we see that in private enterprise. We see everything’s focused on the user experience, the user journey. And that’s the sort of language that we hear coming out of New South Wales government. And I guess if we look at those tremendous innovations that you’ve had. And I mean, you’ve only named a few of them, there’s plenty more; the Strata Hub portal and Fires Near Me app and so forth, and the disability-
Victor Dominello:
FuelCheck. FuelCheck.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, FuelCheck was a great one. I’m sure the oil companies weren’t super enthusiastic.
Victor Dominello:
They weren’t happy about it. No, no. I had to legislate to get that through. But now every time you watch TV, when they’re talking about petrol prices in real time, they’re using the data from FuelCheck.
Nick Abrahams:
It’s such a great [inaudible 00:06:43]. So can you just explain that in case there are folks from outside New South Wales who haven’t had the benefit of FuelCheck?
Victor Dominello:
So basically, the idea came from when I was at university, I was driving my little Suzuki Sierra. I was driving up Victoria Road and I couldn’t afford much petrol. So I’d be going from petrol station to petrol station to petrol station. And I was thinking… And every time I was thinking, “Oh, it’s going to be cheaper down the road.”
Nick Abrahams:
Right. Where do I bet?
Victor Dominello:
Where do I bet? Exactly. And FuelCheck poker type thing. Anyway, so I thought one day, wouldn’t it be good to have all this in real time on a phone, on an app? There were some apps out there that did crowdsourcing, but that wasn’t reliable because that means that you had to get your saturation. That was never going to happen. Fast forward, become the Minister of Fair Trading many years ago and I asked, why don’t we get realtime information? I.e., every time you change the petrol price on the street, you have to do that by law because otherwise, you’re going to get traffic everywhere. Why don’t you also do it online?
And that way, create a data source we could open up for the world to see and other people use. Had to legislate to require petrol stations to give me their price in real time. And to be honest, before the legislation, you wouldn’t believe this, I asked Fair Trading and so on, “How many petrol stations do we have?” “Oh, I don’t know, Minister, it’s about 2000, 2,200.” I said, “What do you mean you don’t know? You’re the regulator.” There wasn’t even a central database for petrol stations. So anyway, so fast forward, we’ve now got FuelCheck over 2.1 million downloads.
Nick Abrahams:
Fantastic. No, it’s so good. So those sorts of innovations are… I mean, it’s hard to innovate within private enterprise. I think, well, there used to be perhaps suggestions that governments aren’t very good at changing or responding to requirements to change, but you’ve achieved some extraordinary innovations. So just for those of us that have to look after innovation within large organizations, do you have any sort of rules that you go by? How do you achieve… Within a big organization, how do you get gravity and support and success with innovation?
Victor Dominello:
I think that, well, it’s not me, I’m part of a great team and I pay complement to the team. But generally speaking, for me, it’s about getting a license to do the risk as you’ve defined. Because you’re right, politicians hate risk. They want to be at the front of a school cutting ribbon and say how great that school was. No politician wants to be in front of a disaster or a fire.
Nick Abrahams:
Right.
Victor Dominello:
Because they just don’t like it. They’re risk averse. So the way you de-risk new ideas, innovations in my mind is through pilots. And we did that through the digital driver’s license. I think we did about four or five pilots before we took it to market because that was so risky in the sense that if we stuffed up digital identity, which this was in many ways, then it would be horrific for our future roadmap. Same with Dine & Discover vouchers. Same with everything we do. I really encourage the pilots because it creates that authorizing environment with the public to say, “Look, this is not going to be perfect, but we are going to try it and everyone will have their eyes wide open.” We’ll do the reviews on it, et cetera, et cetera. But we need to try it because there’s a greater risk if we don’t try.
Nick Abrahams:
And in terms of the terminology, and I guess the process, I mean, does the team talk about minimum viable product and iterative-
Victor Dominello:
Oh, absolutely.
Nick Abrahams:
Okay.
Victor Dominello:
Absolutely. I unashamedly say that I’m fortunate. I’ve got the largest startup in the country, in my agency. So honestly, I throw thought bubbles at them. And normally, I’m used to government agency saying there’s no such thing as yes minister, no minister, no minister. That can’t happen. No, no, no. I am so lucky with my agency. I’ll give them a thought bubble and they’ll do a quick sprint, turnaround and they’ll come back to me in two weeks and actually say, “Yeah, that is doable.” I’m so proud that in their mindset, they look at how to do things, not rather how not to do things. And that’s just a phenomenal culture change.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. No, you’ve got some great people with some greats mindsets in that organization. [inaudible 00:11:29].
Victor Dominello:
Love them.
Nick Abrahams:
I mean, all the way down, frankly, to the folks on the counter at Service New South Wales. I was in there not so long ago and something wasn’t quite right, I can’t remember. It was a detail. And rather than just going, [inaudible 00:11:44], computer says, no, the person who was serving me said, “Hang on a minute,” and went and chatted to someone else, they’re like, “Oh, we could do it this way.” It was just like, oh, actually looking for a way to help was fantastic.
Victor Dominello:
I love it. And if you want a source of inspiration, go to the people on the front line and search user files that are exactly as you said, Nick, looking at ways to say yes, not the easy no.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah.
Victor Dominello:
And that is such a change in the way government thinks.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, no, that’s fantastic. So as you know, we talk about Web3 going mainstream on this podcast, and I know you’re great lover of all things technology. And we’ve had a technology blockchain around for a while. Since Bitcoin came out over a decade ago. It’s sort of struggled a bit to find a spot. Where do you see blockchain… I know there’s been some sort of work done by the New South Wales government, but where do you see blockchain fitting into government?
Victor Dominello:
Oh, it’s already starting to fit in, in the sense that we’ve got David Chandler, who’s the Building Commissioner. I’m a big fan of David. I remember the bureau first meeting in our office. He came in, he was talking data, I said… And he was trying to give me his roadmap and trying to explain to me how data and digital works. And I said, “David, you had me at [inaudible 00:13:03].” Because it’s rare inside a government to find people that understand this space. Anyway, David do his internal credit has set up the building trust indicator. Now that is based on blockchain technology.
So we will be able to look at a building in the not too distant future and more importantly, see its parts as it evolves. And again, that is going to be critical to government. So I read recently that the last few decades have been all about knowing your customer. I think the decade ahead and maybe a couple of decades ahead will be more about knowing your supplier. And again, that supply chain, I think a lot of that will be built on blockchain technology. Particularly the further out it goes. The further the distance, the less the trust. But if you’ve using blockchain to build that piece from X to source, then I think you’ll have a lot more trust in the supply.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. And it’s certainly, if you look at where blockchain has worked well, probably less well frankly in financial services and payments and so forth because of the timing and how it validates transactions. But certainly in Providence and being able to track back through the supply chain, it feels like there’s real value there. Yeah, I mean, I agree. The building of trust indicator. What’s interesting is this is information that exists, it’s out there, it’s just a matter of how could we record it and then digital twin it effectively, so you can see exactly what’s going on underneath the covers.
Victor Dominello:
Yeah, and we definitely need that. And to your point around Providence, think about the cladding challenges that we have and the catastrophic impact that will occur if it fails. So governments increasingly need to invest and explore more options in blockchain moving forward. There’s no doubt about that in my mind.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, no, terrific. And then of course, as a subject gets quite a lot of airplay, I’m not sure exactly where it fits, but the metaverse and it’s talked about a lot. And I’m just interested, do you have a view on exactly what is the metaverse and what do you think the opportunities might be there?
Victor Dominello:
Yeah, well, I’ve got Oculus too. I’ve got Quest and I jump into that and it is amazing and I don’t even have a haptic suit. Imagine when that comes into play.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, yeah.
Victor Dominello:
It will go to another level again. It really does. And I imagine most of your listeners would’ve had some dealings in the metaverse, but just 20 minutes in the metaverse and it’s almost surreal. You take the goggles off and you think, “Oh, oh my God, where have I been?”
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah.
Victor Dominello:
And again, that is just going to be more and more ubiquitous in the next 10 to 15 years I imagine. But if you listen to Tim Cook, he’s not really into that. He thinks it’s all going to be augmented reality more than metaverse. But I really think that there will be a significant segment in government play in the metaverse. And I don’t think right now, but maybe in the back end of this decade, we’re going to see a lot more use case of it. And for example, it could be in relation to service delivery, hypothetically. If people feel comfortable using their avatars in the metaverse for whatever reason, it could be geographic reason, it could be a personality or reason, whatever.
They might want to have service delivery channels through the metaverse. And again, governments should be inclusive. If people want paper channels, that’s fine. People want standard digital channels, that’s fine. If people want metaverse channels, that’s fine. So we need to make sure that we evolve to be inclusive in our service delivery. So I see the metaverse having a play there. Equally, we must have guard rails around the metaverse.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah.
Victor Dominello:
Because I don’t think we’ve framed up enough safety in there yet. And I’ve been speaking to Katrina Wallace who’s doing this outstanding work and she’s literally preparing a paper for me. I’m hoping to get it next week.
Nick Abrahams:
Right, okay. Oh good. So we might hear some more about that. I think that’s right. I mean, you look at places like South Korea, obviously in terms of government services through the metaverse. It feels like there’ll be a natural pull through of that as you see more people. I think the right at the moment, and I know metaverse zealots out there will hate me for saying this as they always do on social media. But effectively gamers, that’s the experience that in that truly immersive experience where you can be in game for two to three hours and not really sense that you want to be out of it or so.
Victor Dominello:
But you can see the applications… Pretty much every life experience, you can interplay in the metaverse and create something on another level altogether. But again, I remember Katrina telling me about the case, I think it was in New York, where some poor young lady, so attached to her avatar, her avatar was assaulted. And because she was so attached to it, and if you’ve been in the metaverse, you could see how it’s hard to disassociate from that character. And so the avatar got assaulted, therefore she got assaulted.
Nick Abrahams:
Right.
Victor Dominello:
And there was a court case around that. So that’s why we really need to regulate or prepare the rules of engagement. And another thing that is absolutely critical in the metaverse is identity. Now, I spoke to some young kids the other day about the metaverse and identity and the like, and it was mixed. The answers I got back were mixed. Some were saying, we want to be completely anonymous in the metaverse, but we don’t want our identity. But the other half was saying, you know what, we can create an avatar with all the anonymity that’s attached, but ultimately, that avatar needs to be rooted in identity so that if there is a problem, there can be recourse.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. It is interesting to see there’s these streams of belief around people who want to behave without identification and so forth, and true decentralization. And yet what we’ve seen, particularly with the DeFi explosion, where things have… A number of those protocols have fallen apart and people then want to start suing other people. So everyone likes the idea of no identity until you need to chase down some money that you’re owed. So I think ultimately, it feels like we have to come back to identity. And frankly, I don’t think governments can afford to allow people to operate in unidentified ways.
Victor Dominello:
Well, there are lots of organizations that operate in the shadows and they’re normally called crime gangs.
Nick Abrahams:
Right, yeah.
Victor Dominello:
So governments need to provide trusted environments. So for the good players to operate in, because the bad players operate in the shadows, we know that.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. Now, you’ve said that digital without cybersecurity is like driving without a seatbelt, which I must say I’ve taken… I must have used that, minister, apologies. But I have given credit. But it is, and right at the moment, obviously, we’ve seen a number of significant organizations be attacked with ransomware. This is the problem of our age from my point of view in terms of just what I’m seeing and the damage. So what is government’s responsibility for the cyber security of the citizen?
Victor Dominello:
Oh, it’s absolutely central. Obviously, we need to work in partnership with industry and academia, but ultimately, we create the laws and regulations that frame a whole lot of this up. So for example, in New South Wales, we put $315 million into cyber. We created cyber security, New South Wales. We’ve just came back from the Valley in May, and I got some high level briefings there. And I was so disturbed by what I saw. I said to Greg Wells and Tony Chapman and the team, I said, “What’s next?” We talk about essential aid all the time in the cyber world, but what’s next? What’s beyond central aid? So we’ve now created a cyber series, we’re up to… I just did the fifth of sixth this morning. And today, we were talking about vulnerability disclosure. So often, arguably your greatest strength is A, understanding your weakness and then more over, B, disclosing that weakness.
That’s a demonstration of strength. And we need to start understanding that a lot more and unpacking a lot more in our cyber environment. Because whether it’s Optus yesterday, Medibank today, or somebody else tomorrow, it’s going to constantly happen. The thing that we’ve learned in New South Wales and I’m really proud of it, is we’ve created Resilience New South Wales at a broader level, but in a cyber sense, it’s ID support. And ID support basically helps you get back on your feet as soon as humanly possible. So it’s one thing to stop the attack, but we’ve got to assume there will be attacks. What happens when you do fall, but how do you get back up really fast? So governments have a big role to play in all those areas.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. It’s interesting, I was speaking to an Israeli politician who was talking about, in Israel, the government sees cyber security in the same way they see personal security both being safe on the streets and also from a defense force point of view, being safe from attack from other nations. So they sort of put it on the same level and it feels like that’s where it needs to be. I mean, there’s only so far obviously government can take that. And in the Israeli case, they are doing a lot more surveillance of networks and so forth, which probably triggers some issues that people might not be too excited about.
Victor Dominello:
Well, what’s the number one crime? The fastest growing crime by any measure you speak to cop, any local police district, they’ll tell you it’s cyber.
Nick Abrahams:
Right.
Victor Dominello:
And by a country mile, it’s so pervasive these days.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. Well, now I guess just some exciting projects. I know you’ve got a couple on the go. Are there any that you can tell us a little bit about?
Victor Dominello:
Yeah, well, very, very soon, I want to push the boat out from the dock into the harbor, [inaudible 00:24:45] digital identity.
Nick Abrahams:
Great.
Victor Dominello:
But from a Web3 design architecture. So I’ve been closely following what Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s been doing in relation to Web3 principles about self sovereign identity and the like. And he’s creating the pod and solid technology. But ours is very similarly framed, where the individual needs to own their identity. They need to be in control of what parts of their personal information they share. The classic example is, I hire a car, I need to give them a copy of my driver’s license, but on my driver’s license, why do they have my wet signature or a copy thereof, need a wet signature to start with. That’s another topic.
But why do they need my address? Why do they need my date of birth? Why do they need all this information on that plastic card? All they need to know is that I’m real, I’m not a bot and I’m authorized to drive in New South Wales. So digital identity will enable me to go and hire a car online so I don’t have to go there and give them a copy of my driver’s license. Hire a car online and only share with them two bits of information. Tick, he’s allowed to drive, tick, he’ real.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah.
Victor Dominello:
Happy days. That’s where we need to move.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. And I mean, that is sort of the promise of blockchain technology that we can actually own our own data. And then that in some respects helps to solve at least partly, the cyber security issue because-
Victor Dominello:
Absolutely.
Nick Abrahams:
… the problem that we have is that organizations are sitting on too much data and really, that’s caused because storage is so cheap. So everyone just keeps and doesn’t purge thinking they might use it in the future. Or maybe they just don’t even think that. But the idea that people don’t, or organizations don’t necessarily need to hold that data, they just need it for validation. Once they’re validated, we should be good to go.
Victor Dominello:
Well, I’ve said before that data in the past was hot property. Now it’s more like a hot potato because I think if you hold onto it too long and without reasonable grounds, you’re going to get burnt if there is a data breach. And so I think corporations are starting to rethink this data harvesting model and say, what do I actually need? And more importantly, where do I store it? And what’s the format? Because we’ve seen with Optus and we’ve seen with a lot of other companies increasingly a significant data breach will put the company back two or three years.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, no, I love that. From hot property or hot potato. I may need to take that one out as well for a spin.
Victor Dominello:
But to go to the next stage, so you’re not passing it on like a hot potato, you’re passing it back.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, yeah. Oh, good one. Yeah, no, it’s true. It’s true. People talking about the data is the new oil, the new oil disaster.
Victor Dominello:
Absolutely. If it is not… Well, it is. The reality is if we don’t put appropriate safety measures around it, it can be a disaster. I’ve seen firsthand what happens when you lose your identity from a digital perspective. You’re pretty much stopped from a whole lot of service delivery. And to get your identity when you’ve lost your identity is a nightmare. And it can take months and months and months of trauma.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. No, well, look, that’s all incredibly exciting. I’m particularly excited about the digital identity stuff. Obviously, we’ve seen some bits and pieces around that as a potential idea and the digital birth certificate and so forth. So we very much look forward to that. And I am conscious you are retiring from politics at the next election, which I am personally very sad about, because I think you’ve done an amazing job. And so thank you.And I know there’s a lot of people out there who are very grateful for the work that you’ve done to really look after of New South Wales citizens. But I guess maybe just, and I know you’ve still got many months left before you actually retire. But just a commentary on the state of politics, and do you leave despairing for the way politics has turned? Or are you more positive?
Victor Dominello:
It’s a really good question. I was at that cyber series this morning and somebody came up with the term democratic resilience, and I thought, I hadn’t heard of that. But it’s exactly the space where I think we need to be. And that’s why that digital identity, where individuals control their data, is about building resilience. If you think about the foundation of a democracy is, or the single unit of a democracy is the individual. In an autocracy, it’s the state.So how do we empower the individual more so that they can operate in a democracy? Well, in the digital age, you empower that individual with more control of their data, essentially. So I think we’re really a fork in the road. If we can move down this digital identity where people are in more control of their data, their choices, their settings, then I think that empowers our democracy, because then, they will then move to places that are more transparent.
They’ll be able to give more feedback and be able to have a stronger voice, not a bot voice, a real voice that people say, no, this is a trusted environment. I trust that the feedback here are real people with real problems, with real challenges. So I think we’re at that fork in the road. That’s why that digital identity piece, if we get it right, moves us forward. If we get it wrong, yeah, we’re in a bit of pain.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. And just wondering, do you think we’ll see that at least in pilot before you retire?
Victor Dominello:
Yeah. Look, that is my eternal hope that by the 28th of February, I’ve been assured. But again, I’m not putting too much pressure on the agency.
Nick Abrahams:
Oh, I can imagine. Other than just naming the date.
Victor Dominello:
I just talk to them every day about it. In fact, I joke with Linka who’s running the team. I say, “Linka, you’ve heard of the band Nirvana. Well, on the 28th of February, there’s going to be two songs that we’re either going to play. One is Something In The Way, i.e., it didn’t happen, it got blocked, or Come As You Are. The digital identity is you’ve owned it, people were in control of who they are. So we’ll find out what songs gets played on the 28th.
But look, we’re going to have some very small closed pilots between now and February, and I’ll speak more about that then. But we can’t go too broad yet because we need a legislative framework in place. Because before we go business to business and open this up for the broader ecosystem, we need the rules of engagement. So all we’re going to do is very small, closed pilots to make sure the tech works. Then it’ll be for the next minister, the next government to rack the leg in place, and then hopefully move forward then. And I’ll be a cheerleader on the side like a lot of people on this call have.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. Oh, I’m sure. No. Well, look, thank you very much. You’ve been very grateful. You’ve been very gracious with your time. Really appreciate that Mr. Dominello. Thank you very much.
Victor Dominello:
Bye Nick. Thanks again.
Nick Abrahams:
And we will jump into it. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the show. And this week, I am delighted to have the opportunity to showcase really my home state and a state that I’m very proud of in terms of the way our government has really focused on becoming a world leader in what’s known as citizen centric government. And so joining me today is the honorable Victor Dominello. Minister, welcome to the show.
Victor Dominello:
Thanks, Nick.
Nick Abrahams:
Now, minister, you have a wealth of portfolio responsibilities. You’re the member for Ryde, you’re the Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government, Minister for Small Business, but also the Minister for Fair Trading. Not a lot of spare hours in that day by the sounds of things.
Victor Dominello:
Not at the moment. Not when Parliament’s sitting in particular. It’s a full brief.
Nick Abrahams:
Very good. Well, look, thank you. As you know, I’ve been a big fan of what you have done and what your government has done over years to really focus in on citizen centric government and also how technology can help us. But maybe could you just give us your, I guess, philosophy around the role of government and particularly as Minister for Customer Service?
Victor Dominello:
Well, the philosophy stems in a analogy or a metaphor, it’s in relation to the solar system. Governments are normally the center of that solar system, they are normally the sun. And we expect people to evolve and revolve around us. And when I say us, well, we’ve got lots of moving parts in the sun, lots of agencies inside it. And that’s not customer centric, it’s in fact a very bad experience. Because it means that people have to move and allocate their time, their precious, precious time around the machinations of government.
What we try to do with Department of Customer Service and then therefore more broadly in government, is to flip the equation so that governments and their agencies evolve and revolve around the customer, around the individual. And that’s really been the heart of the journey now really since we started Service New South Wales in 2013. But we’ve really accelerated that when we’ve launched the digital driver’s license and then the Department of Customer Service in 2019 and then a hyper acceleration throughout COVID.
Nick Abrahams:
Yep. Well, fantastic. You’ve always been a big promoter of technology and the opportunities for technology to help us. And I know we hear a lot of negative about technology, but you touched briefly there on digital driver’s license. But could you talk a little bit about some of the successes that you’ve had in terms of the application of technology to make of citizens’ lives easier?
Victor Dominello:
Well, obviously, the digital driver’s license is the thing that most people will visualize. 75% option so far, which is just extraordinary. On the back of that platform, we designed big, [inaudible 00:03:11] small. So on the back of digital driver’s license, we quickly pivoted in the pandemic to the QR check-ins. And again, that was a really important feature to guide us through the pandemic, high success rate there. We again, pivoted on that platform to issue Dine & Discover vouchers and a whole lot of other vouchers, which other governments were saying, “Spend the money, give us your receipts, make an application, we’ll give you the check in the mail.”
We were essentially having digital currency through QR code, which to my knowledge, has never been done before, which, but again, extraordinary uptake. Even before that, I was in Parliament the other day basically doing a review of the comprehensive third party insurance, CTP [inaudible 00:03:58]. That was basically a data piece. And we launched that in 2017, 2018. And what we’ve seen is super profits, [inaudible 00:04:08] super profits come back down to where they should be because it’s a mandatory scheme. We’ve seen premiums come down to levels we haven’t seen for 10 years. So this is an example of using data digital and in customer centric policy settings to really drive profound outcomes.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. I got to say, the CTP, we all experience that. It was such a rare situation where to see your insurance premiums go down.
Victor Dominello:
Yeah.
Nick Abrahams:
We don’t see that, so…
Victor Dominello:
It defies insurance gravity where normally, everything goes up, but for it to come down, it was a… Reflecting on it over five years, it’s good to see that the principles work.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, yeah. And I got to say with vouchers too, it seemed like… It was pretty… Well, it was just an odd time during COVID. But to see those vouchers sort of pop into the app and to have it work seamlessly, frankly, and the fact that I’ve got parents and so forth who were able to use those simply and that’s obviously where the proof is, isn’t it? That it actually works. When you pull it out and you find it on the app and it actually works.
Victor Dominello:
And you’re right, Nick, that’s the magic. To have a seamless experience. Even now, I see beaters come to me all the time in relation to ideas and I’ll try it out. And I said, “Well, hold on, that’s taking me two minutes,” and two minutes is two minutes. But I’m thinking that’s not a great experience. Unless it’s a truly a great experience, I’m not going to use it again. And that’s where government’s got to get their head space in. It’s got to be in making a seamless experience with a whole lot of trust built around it.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. And we see that in private enterprise. We see everything’s focused on the user experience, the user journey. And that’s the sort of language that we hear coming out of New South Wales government. And I guess if we look at those tremendous innovations that you’ve had. And I mean, you’ve only named a few of them, there’s plenty more; the Strata Hub portal and Fires Near Me app and so forth, and the disability-
Victor Dominello:
FuelCheck. FuelCheck.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, FuelCheck was a great one. I’m sure the oil companies weren’t super enthusiastic.
Victor Dominello:
They weren’t happy about it. No, no. I had to legislate to get that through. But now every time you watch TV, when they’re talking about petrol prices in real time, they’re using the data from FuelCheck.
Nick Abrahams:
It’s such a great [inaudible 00:06:43]. So can you just explain that in case there are folks from outside New South Wales who haven’t had the benefit of FuelCheck?
Victor Dominello:
So basically, the idea came from when I was at university, I was driving my little Suzuki Sierra. I was driving up Victoria Road and I couldn’t afford much petrol. So I’d be going from petrol station to petrol station to petrol station. And I was thinking… And every time I was thinking, “Oh, it’s going to be cheaper down the road.”
Nick Abrahams:
Right. Where do I bet?
Victor Dominello:
Where do I bet? Exactly. And FuelCheck poker type thing. Anyway, so I thought one day, wouldn’t it be good to have all this in real time on a phone, on an app? There were some apps out there that did crowdsourcing, but that wasn’t reliable because that means that you had to get your saturation. That was never going to happen. Fast forward, become the Minister of Fair Trading many years ago and I asked, why don’t we get realtime information? I.e., every time you change the petrol price on the street, you have to do that by law because otherwise, you’re going to get traffic everywhere. Why don’t you also do it online?
And that way, create a data source we could open up for the world to see and other people use. Had to legislate to require petrol stations to give me their price in real time. And to be honest, before the legislation, you wouldn’t believe this, I asked Fair Trading and so on, “How many petrol stations do we have?” “Oh, I don’t know, Minister, it’s about 2000, 2,200.” I said, “What do you mean you don’t know? You’re the regulator.” There wasn’t even a central database for petrol stations. So anyway, so fast forward, we’ve now got FuelCheck over 2.1 million downloads.
Nick Abrahams:
Fantastic. No, it’s so good. So those sorts of innovations are… I mean, it’s hard to innovate within private enterprise. I think, well, there used to be perhaps suggestions that governments aren’t very good at changing or responding to requirements to change, but you’ve achieved some extraordinary innovations. So just for those of us that have to look after innovation within large organizations, do you have any sort of rules that you go by? How do you achieve… Within a big organization, how do you get gravity and support and success with innovation?
Victor Dominello:
I think that, well, it’s not me, I’m part of a great team and I pay complement to the team. But generally speaking, for me, it’s about getting a license to do the risk as you’ve defined. Because you’re right, politicians hate risk. They want to be at the front of a school cutting ribbon and say how great that school was. No politician wants to be in front of a disaster or a fire.
Nick Abrahams:
Right.
Victor Dominello:
Because they just don’t like it. They’re risk averse. So the way you de-risk new ideas, innovations in my mind is through pilots. And we did that through the digital driver’s license. I think we did about four or five pilots before we took it to market because that was so risky in the sense that if we stuffed up digital identity, which this was in many ways, then it would be horrific for our future roadmap. Same with Dine & Discover vouchers. Same with everything we do. I really encourage the pilots because it creates that authorizing environment with the public to say, “Look, this is not going to be perfect, but we are going to try it and everyone will have their eyes wide open.” We’ll do the reviews on it, et cetera, et cetera. But we need to try it because there’s a greater risk if we don’t try.
Nick Abrahams:
And in terms of the terminology, and I guess the process, I mean, does the team talk about minimum viable product and iterative-
Victor Dominello:
Oh, absolutely.
Nick Abrahams:
Okay.
Victor Dominello:
Absolutely. I unashamedly say that I’m fortunate. I’ve got the largest startup in the country, in my agency. So honestly, I throw thought bubbles at them. And normally, I’m used to government agency saying there’s no such thing as yes minister, no minister, no minister. That can’t happen. No, no, no. I am so lucky with my agency. I’ll give them a thought bubble and they’ll do a quick sprint, turnaround and they’ll come back to me in two weeks and actually say, “Yeah, that is doable.” I’m so proud that in their mindset, they look at how to do things, not rather how not to do things. And that’s just a phenomenal culture change.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. No, you’ve got some great people with some greats mindsets in that organization. [inaudible 00:11:29].
Victor Dominello:
Love them.
Nick Abrahams:
I mean, all the way down, frankly, to the folks on the counter at Service New South Wales. I was in there not so long ago and something wasn’t quite right, I can’t remember. It was a detail. And rather than just going, [inaudible 00:11:44], computer says, no, the person who was serving me said, “Hang on a minute,” and went and chatted to someone else, they’re like, “Oh, we could do it this way.” It was just like, oh, actually looking for a way to help was fantastic.
Victor Dominello:
I love it. And if you want a source of inspiration, go to the people on the front line and search user files that are exactly as you said, Nick, looking at ways to say yes, not the easy no.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah.
Victor Dominello:
And that is such a change in the way government thinks.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, no, that’s fantastic. So as you know, we talk about Web3 going mainstream on this podcast, and I know you’re great lover of all things technology. And we’ve had a technology blockchain around for a while. Since Bitcoin came out over a decade ago. It’s sort of struggled a bit to find a spot. Where do you see blockchain… I know there’s been some sort of work done by the New South Wales government, but where do you see blockchain fitting into government?
Victor Dominello:
Oh, it’s already starting to fit in, in the sense that we’ve got David Chandler, who’s the Building Commissioner. I’m a big fan of David. I remember the bureau first meeting in our office. He came in, he was talking data, I said… And he was trying to give me his roadmap and trying to explain to me how data and digital works. And I said, “David, you had me at [inaudible 00:13:03].” Because it’s rare inside a government to find people that understand this space. Anyway, David do his internal credit has set up the building trust indicator. Now that is based on blockchain technology.
So we will be able to look at a building in the not too distant future and more importantly, see its parts as it evolves. And again, that is going to be critical to government. So I read recently that the last few decades have been all about knowing your customer. I think the decade ahead and maybe a couple of decades ahead will be more about knowing your supplier. And again, that supply chain, I think a lot of that will be built on blockchain technology. Particularly the further out it goes. The further the distance, the less the trust. But if you’ve using blockchain to build that piece from X to source, then I think you’ll have a lot more trust in the supply.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. And it’s certainly, if you look at where blockchain has worked well, probably less well frankly in financial services and payments and so forth because of the timing and how it validates transactions. But certainly in Providence and being able to track back through the supply chain, it feels like there’s real value there. Yeah, I mean, I agree. The building of trust indicator. What’s interesting is this is information that exists, it’s out there, it’s just a matter of how could we record it and then digital twin it effectively, so you can see exactly what’s going on underneath the covers.
Victor Dominello:
Yeah, and we definitely need that. And to your point around Providence, think about the cladding challenges that we have and the catastrophic impact that will occur if it fails. So governments increasingly need to invest and explore more options in blockchain moving forward. There’s no doubt about that in my mind.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, no, terrific. And then of course, as a subject gets quite a lot of airplay, I’m not sure exactly where it fits, but the metaverse and it’s talked about a lot. And I’m just interested, do you have a view on exactly what is the metaverse and what do you think the opportunities might be there?
Victor Dominello:
Yeah, well, I’ve got Oculus too. I’ve got Quest and I jump into that and it is amazing and I don’t even have a haptic suit. Imagine when that comes into play.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, yeah.
Victor Dominello:
It will go to another level again. It really does. And I imagine most of your listeners would’ve had some dealings in the metaverse, but just 20 minutes in the metaverse and it’s almost surreal. You take the goggles off and you think, “Oh, oh my God, where have I been?”
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah.
Victor Dominello:
And again, that is just going to be more and more ubiquitous in the next 10 to 15 years I imagine. But if you listen to Tim Cook, he’s not really into that. He thinks it’s all going to be augmented reality more than metaverse. But I really think that there will be a significant segment in government play in the metaverse. And I don’t think right now, but maybe in the back end of this decade, we’re going to see a lot more use case of it. And for example, it could be in relation to service delivery, hypothetically. If people feel comfortable using their avatars in the metaverse for whatever reason, it could be geographic reason, it could be a personality or reason, whatever.
They might want to have service delivery channels through the metaverse. And again, governments should be inclusive. If people want paper channels, that’s fine. People want standard digital channels, that’s fine. If people want metaverse channels, that’s fine. So we need to make sure that we evolve to be inclusive in our service delivery. So I see the metaverse having a play there. Equally, we must have guard rails around the metaverse.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah.
Victor Dominello:
Because I don’t think we’ve framed up enough safety in there yet. And I’ve been speaking to Katrina Wallace who’s doing this outstanding work and she’s literally preparing a paper for me. I’m hoping to get it next week.
Nick Abrahams:
Right, okay. Oh good. So we might hear some more about that. I think that’s right. I mean, you look at places like South Korea, obviously in terms of government services through the metaverse. It feels like there’ll be a natural pull through of that as you see more people. I think the right at the moment, and I know metaverse zealots out there will hate me for saying this as they always do on social media. But effectively gamers, that’s the experience that in that truly immersive experience where you can be in game for two to three hours and not really sense that you want to be out of it or so.
Victor Dominello:
But you can see the applications… Pretty much every life experience, you can interplay in the metaverse and create something on another level altogether. But again, I remember Katrina telling me about the case, I think it was in New York, where some poor young lady, so attached to her avatar, her avatar was assaulted. And because she was so attached to it, and if you’ve been in the metaverse, you could see how it’s hard to disassociate from that character. And so the avatar got assaulted, therefore she got assaulted.
Nick Abrahams:
Right.
Victor Dominello:
And there was a court case around that. So that’s why we really need to regulate or prepare the rules of engagement. And another thing that is absolutely critical in the metaverse is identity. Now, I spoke to some young kids the other day about the metaverse and identity and the like, and it was mixed. The answers I got back were mixed. Some were saying, we want to be completely anonymous in the metaverse, but we don’t want our identity. But the other half was saying, you know what, we can create an avatar with all the anonymity that’s attached, but ultimately, that avatar needs to be rooted in identity so that if there is a problem, there can be recourse.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. It is interesting to see there’s these streams of belief around people who want to behave without identification and so forth, and true decentralization. And yet what we’ve seen, particularly with the DeFi explosion, where things have… A number of those protocols have fallen apart and people then want to start suing other people. So everyone likes the idea of no identity until you need to chase down some money that you’re owed. So I think ultimately, it feels like we have to come back to identity. And frankly, I don’t think governments can afford to allow people to operate in unidentified ways.
Victor Dominello:
Well, there are lots of organizations that operate in the shadows and they’re normally called crime gangs.
Nick Abrahams:
Right, yeah.
Victor Dominello:
So governments need to provide trusted environments. So for the good players to operate in, because the bad players operate in the shadows, we know that.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. Now, you’ve said that digital without cybersecurity is like driving without a seatbelt, which I must say I’ve taken… I must have used that, minister, apologies. But I have given credit. But it is, and right at the moment, obviously, we’ve seen a number of significant organizations be attacked with ransomware. This is the problem of our age from my point of view in terms of just what I’m seeing and the damage. So what is government’s responsibility for the cyber security of the citizen?
Victor Dominello:
Oh, it’s absolutely central. Obviously, we need to work in partnership with industry and academia, but ultimately, we create the laws and regulations that frame a whole lot of this up. So for example, in New South Wales, we put $315 million into cyber. We created cyber security, New South Wales. We’ve just came back from the Valley in May, and I got some high level briefings there. And I was so disturbed by what I saw. I said to Greg Wells and Tony Chapman and the team, I said, “What’s next?” We talk about essential aid all the time in the cyber world, but what’s next? What’s beyond central aid? So we’ve now created a cyber series, we’re up to… I just did the fifth of sixth this morning. And today, we were talking about vulnerability disclosure. So often, arguably your greatest strength is A, understanding your weakness and then more over, B, disclosing that weakness.
That’s a demonstration of strength. And we need to start understanding that a lot more and unpacking a lot more in our cyber environment. Because whether it’s Optus yesterday, Medibank today, or somebody else tomorrow, it’s going to constantly happen. The thing that we’ve learned in New South Wales and I’m really proud of it, is we’ve created Resilience New South Wales at a broader level, but in a cyber sense, it’s ID support. And ID support basically helps you get back on your feet as soon as humanly possible. So it’s one thing to stop the attack, but we’ve got to assume there will be attacks. What happens when you do fall, but how do you get back up really fast? So governments have a big role to play in all those areas.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. It’s interesting, I was speaking to an Israeli politician who was talking about, in Israel, the government sees cyber security in the same way they see personal security both being safe on the streets and also from a defense force point of view, being safe from attack from other nations. So they sort of put it on the same level and it feels like that’s where it needs to be. I mean, there’s only so far obviously government can take that. And in the Israeli case, they are doing a lot more surveillance of networks and so forth, which probably triggers some issues that people might not be too excited about.
Victor Dominello:
Well, what’s the number one crime? The fastest growing crime by any measure you speak to cop, any local police district, they’ll tell you it’s cyber.
Nick Abrahams:
Right.
Victor Dominello:
And by a country mile, it’s so pervasive these days.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. Well, now I guess just some exciting projects. I know you’ve got a couple on the go. Are there any that you can tell us a little bit about?
Victor Dominello:
Yeah, well, very, very soon, I want to push the boat out from the dock into the harbor, [inaudible 00:24:45] digital identity.
Nick Abrahams:
Great.
Victor Dominello:
But from a Web3 design architecture. So I’ve been closely following what Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s been doing in relation to Web3 principles about self sovereign identity and the like. And he’s creating the pod and solid technology. But ours is very similarly framed, where the individual needs to own their identity. They need to be in control of what parts of their personal information they share. The classic example is, I hire a car, I need to give them a copy of my driver’s license, but on my driver’s license, why do they have my wet signature or a copy thereof, need a wet signature to start with. That’s another topic.
But why do they need my address? Why do they need my date of birth? Why do they need all this information on that plastic card? All they need to know is that I’m real, I’m not a bot and I’m authorized to drive in New South Wales. So digital identity will enable me to go and hire a car online so I don’t have to go there and give them a copy of my driver’s license. Hire a car online and only share with them two bits of information. Tick, he’s allowed to drive, tick, he’ real.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah.
Victor Dominello:
Happy days. That’s where we need to move.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. And I mean, that is sort of the promise of blockchain technology that we can actually own our own data. And then that in some respects helps to solve at least partly, the cyber security issue because-
Victor Dominello:
Absolutely.
Nick Abrahams:
… the problem that we have is that organizations are sitting on too much data and really, that’s caused because storage is so cheap. So everyone just keeps and doesn’t purge thinking they might use it in the future. Or maybe they just don’t even think that. But the idea that people don’t, or organizations don’t necessarily need to hold that data, they just need it for validation. Once they’re validated, we should be good to go.
Victor Dominello:
Well, I’ve said before that data in the past was hot property. Now it’s more like a hot potato because I think if you hold onto it too long and without reasonable grounds, you’re going to get burnt if there is a data breach. And so I think corporations are starting to rethink this data harvesting model and say, what do I actually need? And more importantly, where do I store it? And what’s the format? Because we’ve seen with Optus and we’ve seen with a lot of other companies increasingly a significant data breach will put the company back two or three years.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, no, I love that. From hot property or hot potato. I may need to take that one out as well for a spin.
Victor Dominello:
But to go to the next stage, so you’re not passing it on like a hot potato, you’re passing it back.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah, yeah. Oh, good one. Yeah, no, it’s true. It’s true. People talking about the data is the new oil, the new oil disaster.
Victor Dominello:
Absolutely. If it is not… Well, it is. The reality is if we don’t put appropriate safety measures around it, it can be a disaster. I’ve seen firsthand what happens when you lose your identity from a digital perspective. You’re pretty much stopped from a whole lot of service delivery. And to get your identity when you’ve lost your identity is a nightmare. And it can take months and months and months of trauma.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. No, well, look, that’s all incredibly exciting. I’m particularly excited about the digital identity stuff. Obviously, we’ve seen some bits and pieces around that as a potential idea and the digital birth certificate and so forth. So we very much look forward to that. And I am conscious you are retiring from politics at the next election, which I am personally very sad about, because I think you’ve done an amazing job. And so thank you.And I know there’s a lot of people out there who are very grateful for the work that you’ve done to really look after of New South Wales citizens. But I guess maybe just, and I know you’ve still got many months left before you actually retire. But just a commentary on the state of politics, and do you leave despairing for the way politics has turned? Or are you more positive?
Victor Dominello:
It’s a really good question. I was at that cyber series this morning and somebody came up with the term democratic resilience, and I thought, I hadn’t heard of that. But it’s exactly the space where I think we need to be. And that’s why that digital identity, where individuals control their data, is about building resilience. If you think about the foundation of a democracy is, or the single unit of a democracy is the individual. In an autocracy, it’s the state.So how do we empower the individual more so that they can operate in a democracy? Well, in the digital age, you empower that individual with more control of their data, essentially. So I think we’re really a fork in the road. If we can move down this digital identity where people are in more control of their data, their choices, their settings, then I think that empowers our democracy, because then, they will then move to places that are more transparent.
They’ll be able to give more feedback and be able to have a stronger voice, not a bot voice, a real voice that people say, no, this is a trusted environment. I trust that the feedback here are real people with real problems, with real challenges. So I think we’re at that fork in the road. That’s why that digital identity piece, if we get it right, moves us forward. If we get it wrong, yeah, we’re in a bit of pain.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. And just wondering, do you think we’ll see that at least in pilot before you retire?
Victor Dominello:
Yeah. Look, that is my eternal hope that by the 28th of February, I’ve been assured. But again, I’m not putting too much pressure on the agency.
Nick Abrahams:
Oh, I can imagine. Other than just naming the date.
Victor Dominello:
I just talk to them every day about it. In fact, I joke with Linka who’s running the team. I say, “Linka, you’ve heard of the band Nirvana. Well, on the 28th of February, there’s going to be two songs that we’re either going to play. One is Something In The Way, i.e., it didn’t happen, it got blocked, or Come As You Are. The digital identity is you’ve owned it, people were in control of who they are. So we’ll find out what songs gets played on the 28th.
But look, we’re going to have some very small closed pilots between now and February, and I’ll speak more about that then. But we can’t go too broad yet because we need a legislative framework in place. Because before we go business to business and open this up for the broader ecosystem, we need the rules of engagement. So all we’re going to do is very small, closed pilots to make sure the tech works. Then it’ll be for the next minister, the next government to rack the leg in place, and then hopefully move forward then. And I’ll be a cheerleader on the side like a lot of people on this call have.
Nick Abrahams:
Yeah. Oh, I’m sure. No. Well, look, thank you very much. You’ve been very grateful. You’ve been very gracious with your time. Really appreciate that Mr. Dominello. Thank you very much.
Victor Dominello:
Bye Nick. Thanks again.