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In this Edition:

ITPA response to Govt changes to 457 visas
ITPA a founding member of the Beyond 2020 Alliance
14 tips for reducing your tax exposure
From the Fifth Estate - a media watch on the IT industry
Don’t miss our Short Courses!
How to become a Certified Practicing Member
ITPA Advice Forums

Hi <<First Name>>,

In recent months, we have made some good progress in building awareness of the organisation and having our collective voice heard on issues of importance to the IT industry such as the NBN and 457 skilled worker visas. Search for ITPA 457 visa or ITPA NBN on Google and you will see that the coverage in IT and mainstream media has been broad and positive for the ITPA profile.

Having submitted a freedom of information request, we are continuing our campaign to create a more transparent system for skilled visa immigration of IT professionals.

As an organisation representing IT professionals in Australia, we acknowledge that there is always going to be a need to supplement local skills with overseas workers and believe that where appropriate, this is an important component of building a knowledge-based economy in Australia.

We also want to contribute to the development of long term strategies that protect local IT professionals from erroneous practices which introduce lower cost employees undertaking the work that is perfectly suitable to local experience.

In addition, our vision for the future includes a tertiary education system and ongoing career development pathways that enable Australian IT graduates and IT professionals to acquire the skills and experience needed to meet industry demand for the present and future.

The bottom line is that there is a lot more work to do and you can contribute by getting involved as a Professional Member of the organisation and encouraging your colleagues to join. We now have a voice that represents close to 10,000 IT professionals in this country but that is still just a fraction of the approximately 260,000 people who work in this industry.

It is about time that we, as a collective of citizens with vast knowledge and experience of IT in this country and around the world, spoke up and demanded a role in policy development, government investment and governance over the industry.

Join ITPA NOW!

Cheers.
Robert Hudson,
ITPA President

In April, the Prime Minister used Facebook to announce that the 457 visa system for importing skilled labour would be abolished to be replaced by a new system that is supposedly more transparent and protective of Australian workers. The resultant media coverage identified that the IT industry is one of the key areas that brought additional scutiny to 457 visa approval practices.

As part of ITPA's active participation in debate surrounding the granting of 457 skilled work visas, a webinar was held for members as an update on the government's abolishing of this system for a replacement version and as an interactive forum to get feedback on the subject. See this link for the full webinar and keep us informed of what is happening in your workplace.

There has also been a Freedom of Information request submitted in an attempt to get a clear picture of how 457 visas are being granted at NBN Co. You can follow how this request is going via this link.

ITPA is determined to keep hammering away at this issue because it is as yet unclear as to exactly what form the replacement. Click the link below to read our response to the government changes which received widespread media coverage.

ITPA founding member of
The Beyond 2020 Alliance

Summary and Aspirations.
A new conversation is needed to shape Australia’s digital infrastructure Beyond 2020. The purpose of the Beyond 2020 Alliance is to facilitate discussion and debate, and formulate a vision of Australia’s digitally enabled future beyond 2020. The year 2020 is the nominal date by which the Australian Government believes that the NBN is completed.

We sought the advice of a highly experienced value improvement business advisor and chartered tax accountant to suggest some ways to ensure IT professionals understand all of their obligations and allowances when it comes to personal income tax.

What the IT Media is talking about

A somewhat irreverent look at some of the media chatter on the IT industry that has been happening over the last month.

Don’t miss our Short Courses!

One of the exciting new services we will be offering as the ITPA is quarterly, free, online Short Courses. The courses will normally be five weeks in duration with four weeks of study followed by an optional assessment in the 5th week.

In most cases, they will be advanced ‘500 level’ courses designed for experienced IT Pros and will be delivered by senior ITPA Members and or third-party industry experts.

ITPA's short courses are the foundation stones of our commitment to professional development an a pathway to Certified Practising Member status, so get keen and get registered.

So far, we are planning to run Short courses on the following:

IP6 Masterclass
Pen Testing Masterclass

If you have ideas for other Short Courses you think will be relevant to skills development for the membership, get in touch with ITPA via: sponsorship@itpa.org.au

Membership Growth: ITPA is Delivering Value

Since launching in November 2016, ITPA's membership numbers have grown rapidly to now be nearly 10,000.

While most of these are Associate Members, there has also been a significant jump in the number of full-paying financial members.

As Long-term (former SAGE-AU) member, Mike Ciavarella said in a recent profile we wrote for The Download, ITPA offers tremendous value to members and led by pioneer, Jon Crust the list of Certified Practising Members continues to grow.

With the cost of an individual membership only $165 per year, you should really think about making that commitment, getting involved with ITPA and taking advantage of the knowledge sharing and credibility benefits that come with being a member.

For all information on ITPA membership levels, see the dedicated section of the website including specific information about the CPM program.

ITPA Advice Forums

One of the most valuable services currently offered to ITPA financial members is the Advice Forums which are hosted on the MyITPA section of the ITPA website. This service offers members the opportunity to engage and share knowledge with other ITPA members through reading and contributing comments on a range of subjects that are industry-based, technical or otherwise of interest to members.
Once logged in, members can start new threads, pose questions, answer questions or just engage in conversation with their industry peers. This peer review ensures that information shared is accurate and up-to-date while the closed nature of the lists means that members can ask questions without fear of reprisal for sharing information in a public domain.
The Forums receive an average of 22 posts per day and this is expected to grow rapidly in line with an expanding number of financial members under the new ITPA umbrella.
Below are some recent topics that have been discussed:

Mikrotik options for fast IPSEC throughput
Intel AMT Remote Execution Vulnerability
Vcentre - Removing datastore fails
Password Guidelines from NIST
Options when ADSL just doesn’t cut it
Raspberry Pi 3 Dev boards and 7” Official Displays
Current Exchange online bandwidth recommendations
Support roster for 24 x 7 x 365 phone support

ITPA founding member of The Beyond 2020 Alliance

ITPA founding member of
The Beyond 2020 Alliance