March 2007 eNews
Highlights include WALIS International Forum 2008, Data Elevation Model workshop, Australia and US secure tsunami partnership, Spatial Jobs Online expanded
What’s Happening in the WALIS Community?
WALIS International Forum 2008
WALIS Spatial Management Group
WALIS Stakeholders in the News
WA’s Award-winning Firewatch Program helps Indonesia’s Wildfires
Australia and US Secure Tsunami Partnership
Australian Angle
Climate Change View clearer with new Oceans Satellite
Map your Census Data: new ABS Innovation
CSIRO Imagery shows Outer Great Barrier Reef at Risk from River Plumes
On shaky ground? Understanding Earthquake Ground-shaking in Australia
Water, Water, who's got the Water? asks ASIBA
Greenfleet uses GIS in their Fight against Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Space Scientists to take the Earth’s Pulse
A Bird’s Eye View from ACRES Satellites
Spatial Jobs Online
International Expansion
News from Around the Globe
USGS Collaborates on Unique,
Comprehensive View of Antarctica
Helping Troops tell Friend from Foe
Ordnance Survey to Provide Greater Choice in Spatial Addressing across Great Britain
Better Geographical Data: Conciliation Agreement Approved by European Parliament on INSPIRE
Lost Mountains: Google Earth Adds New Layer of Destruction To Imagery
KGB Trumped Ordnance Survey on UK Mapping
Google KML Search: what does it
mean for Geospatial Professionals?
Upcoming Events
Details of events in Australia and around the world
Interesting Website of the Month
What’s
Happening in the WALIS Community?
WALIS International Forum
2008
Planning
for the WALIS International Forum 2008 is well under way. The call for papers and the exhibitors and
sponsors prospectus will be available in early April. For more information or to register your
interest, visit www.walis.wa.gov.au/forum
or email forum@walis.wa.gov.au.
WALIS Spatial Management
Group
The
new WALIS Spatial Management Group (SMG) held its inaugural meeting on Tuesday 27
February and agreed on the terms of reference for the group. Mike Bradford, Executive Director Information
Access, Landgate, was elected as Chair of the committee. The SMG will coordinate governance and
strategic issues concerning WALIS.
Custodianship
Policy Review
Any
agencies that have spatial datasets likely to be compliant with the
custodianship data standard are encouraged to download and complete a Custodial
Dataset Self- Evaluation Scorecard, now available on the WALIS
website at http://www.walis.wa.gov.au/projects/Cust_Pol/.
The
completed scorecards for datasets that are compliant with the standard should
then be returned to the WALIS Office. The
custodianship assignment will then be presented to WALIS Council and WALIS Executive
Policy Committee for endorsement. Once
the custodianship is formalised, a notice of the custodial assignment of the
datasets will be published in the government gazette. The Custodial Data List is in the process of
being updated to include newly approved Custodial Datasets.
For further information,
contact Dan
Sandison
at dan.sandison@walis.wa.gov.au or
(08) 9273 7037.
SLICP 06-07
The
SLICP for 06-07 is on track. SLICP
Status Reports are available on the SLICP website.
SLICP 07/08
All
applications for the State Land Capture Program (SLICP) have been compiled and
Landgate’s working team is in the process of costing and establishing this year’s
program priorities. This information will be tabled at the next WALIS Council
Meeting which will be held on 11 April.
For
further information, contact the WALIS Office at slicp@walis.wa.gov.au, or Fiona McCarthy at fiona.mccarthy@walis.wa.gov.au or
(08) 9273 7039.
DEM Workshop
The WALIS Office hosted a workshop to determine the
Western Australian requirements for coastal Digital Elevation Model (DEM)
information. The workshop was held on
Wednesday 28 February at the Department of Fisheries in Hillarys. Visit the WALIS website to view the photos at
http://www.walis.wa.gov.au/projects/WA_Coastal_Digital_Elevation_Model/,
or contact Karen Barns at
Karen.Barns@walis.wa.gov.au or
(08) 9273 7093 for more information on the outcomes of the workshop.
Drainage Project
The drainage report was
presented to WALIS Council. The next
step will be for the WALIS Office to meet with key players within the
Department of Water to determine if proceeding will be sustainable. A
conference paper on the drainage project was also presented to the Institute of
Public Works Engineering Australia (IPWEA).
For further information,
contact Dan Sandison at dan.sandison@walis.wa.gov.au or
(08) 9273 7037.
Interragator+
User
Acceptance Testing (UAT) in the Interragator test environment is due to be completed
by mid March with a 20 March go live date. Data verification by agencies
will commence from this date, with all existing Interragator data being
published to the new Interragator+. For further information,
contact Karen Barns at Karen.Barns@walis.wa.gov.au or (08) 9273 7093.
WALIS
Stakeholders in the News
WA’s
Award-winning Firewatch Program helps Indonesia’s Wildfires
A
team of fire monitoring experts from Landgate (formerly the Department of Land
Information) is helping the Indonesian Government reduce the smoke haze caused
by the huge forest fires which have plagued South East Asia since the 1990s. Land Information Minister Michelle Roberts
said Landgate’s Satellite Remote Sensing Service (SRSS) had a 25-year
history of customising satellite-monitoring applications to meet the specific
needs of Government agencies across Australia. The Indonesian team of seven is taking part
in a six-week training program with the SRSS technical team. “This intense training program follows visits
by SRSS technical teams to Indonesia to meet Forestry and
Environment Ministries, to assess their needs and ascertain sources of
local spatial information which will be used to generate fire maps,” the
Minister said. “Access to these fire
maps will help these agencies to control and restrict the spread of forest
fires which have been an annual disaster in the region for many years.”
http://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/media/media.nsf/news/B4950B0F0FCB4974C825729C002057CC?opendocument
Australia and US Secure Tsunami Partnership
The
Bureau of Meteorology and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration on 23 February officially signed an agreement to promote cooperative
technical partnerships in tsunami early warning systems. The Tsunami Science Implementing Arrangement
falls under the umbrella of a memorandum of agreement between the bureau and
NOAA signed on 24 March last year, soon after the 28 February signing of the
overarching US-Australia bilateral Science and Technology Cooperation
agreement. The bureau’s Director of
Meteorology Dr Geoff Love said: “We are creating a structure and network of
scientists in both countries to share data and provide technical capabilities.
The agreement fosters a mutual exchange of scientific and technical expertise
to the benefit of both countries.”
With
Federal Government funding of $68.9 million over four years with a 2009
completion date, Australia has committed to
developing its own Australian Tsunami Warning System. Dr Love said: “NOAA’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii will benefit from enhanced
data from the Australian Tsunami Warning System’s expanded network of sea level
and seismic instruments. The
collaboration between the two nations has the real potential to save lives.”
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/ho/20070223.shtml
Australian
Angle
Climate Change View clearer
with new Oceans Satellite
Australian scientists will have access to the
most detailed measurements of ocean circulation and global sea level variations
following the launch next year of a multinational ocean-observing satellite –
Jason-2. “The success of next year’s
launch will be critical for the maintenance of the global ocean-observing
system,” says oceanographer, Dr David Griffin, of CSIRO’s Wealth from Oceans
Research Flagship. Dr Griffin said the satellite’s data are used
to study ocean dynamics, with many applications including global warming and
climate prediction, monitoring of mean sea level, El Niño and La Niña events, ocean
circulation and tides and waves.
Dr Griffin said ocean and
climate science is taking full advantage of new monitoring technologies such as
Jason-1 and Jason-2 and the Argo robotic profilers, providing
near real-time information on ocean behaviour. “When delivered in near-real time, these data
form the basis of operational oceanography – in other words, forecasting ocean
currents and temperatures,” he said.
http://www.csiro.au/news/ps2vd.html
Map your Census Data: new ABS Innovation
For
the first time Australians can now map Census data for their region through the
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) website.
In preparation for the release of 2006 Census data later this year, the
ABS has released the innovative ‘QuickMaps’ product loaded with 2001 Census
statistics. QuickMaps gives fast, easy
access to thematic maps of Census data for a specific region, completely free
of charge. This allows a range of users
to easily understand their community and how it is changing. This is the first time the ABS has released
interactive thematic data on its website. With over half a million maps to choose from,
every Australian has the opportunity to discover something about themselves and
the rest of the nation.
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mediareleasesbyReleaseDate/6772F59881C86FFCCA25728F000CCFDF?OpenDocument
CSIRO Imagery
shows Outer Great Barrier Reef at Risk from River Plumes
A stunning series of satellite imagery of
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef released by the CSIRO shows for the first time
visual confirmation of the theory that sediment plumes travel to the outer
reef, and beyond. The remotely sensed
images, taken from 9-13 February this year, challenge conventional thought that
sediment travelling from our river systems into the GBR is captured by the
longshore current and travels no more than 10 to 15 kilometres offshore,
affecting only the inner Great Barrier Reef Lagoon and the inner reef corals. Images captured by CSIRO show large plumes of
terrestrial material following unconventional patterns and travelling quite
fast as far as 65 to 130 kilometres, to the outer reef and, in some instances,
travelling along the outer reef and re-entering the reef. The images challenge the traditional school of hydrological modelling,
which says sediment plume movement in the mid to northern GBR usually go
north and never directly flow to the outer reef is spared the
direct effects of such river floods.
While extreme coastal events have been captured by
remote sensing before, this is the first time they can be seen and analysed
straight after the event as there are now more satellites imaging the Earth and
CSIRO has invested in fast information delivery systems.
For
more information, visit http://www.csiro.au/news/ps2t8.html
On shaky ground?
Understanding Earthquake Ground-shaking in Australia
New ground-motion prediction equations integrated with
the first site-response model for Australia
can refine our estimates of earthquake ground-shaking, providing the potential
to rapidly assess earthquake impact for disaster response. Predicting the level of ground-shaking at a
given distance from an earthquake rupture depends on three key elements:
- the magnitude and frequency content of the earthquake source,
- how earthquake energy decays as it propagates through the Earth’s crust,
- how near-surface regolith modifies the observed ground motions.
For a specific earthquake, the first of these are
estimated from the recorded seismograms. The second of these elements are modelled
using ground-motion prediction equations, while the third is represented by a
site-response model. The combination of
these two models provides a fundamental tool for assessing earthquake hazard. The acquisition of high-quality Australian
earthquake ground-motion data, and the development of improved numerical
simulation techniques and the first national-scale Australian site-response
model, now permit Australian-specific earthquake hazard analyses.
For
more information, visit http://www.ga.gov.au/ausgeonews/ausgeonews200703/earthquake.jsp.
Water, Water, who's got the Water? asks ASIBA
The
Prime Minister’s $10b National Plan for Water Security has ASIBA’s cautious
approval, though the peak industry body says that the Plan overemphasises how
much water is being extracted from water systems rather than measuring how much
is in them in the first place. “We’re
delighted that the Plan recognises ASIBA’s long-held and much touted view that
the government needs to invest in water information,” said ASIBA
Chairman, Michael Easton. “But the fact
remains that if you allocate what comes out before you’ve measured what’s in
there, in the first place, then you’re operating from a false premise and all
derivative calculations must therefore be questionable,” he said. Easton points out that even the
Prime Minister, when he released his water plan, said “you can’t manage
what you don’t measure. ASIBA believes we must first know, clearly and unequivocally, how much
water we have to begin with before we start allocating
volumes to the environment, or agriculture, or any other cause or stakeholder. This measurement is
fundamental to any effective national water policy.”
http://www.asiba.com.au/clients/asiba/UserFiles/File/Media%20Releases/Water%20Policy%20010307.pdf
Fighting Fire with GIS
Every summer, bushfires are a fact of Australian life.
Recent fires in eastern Australia have devastated communities and infrastructure, and destroyed vast
areas of bushland. The greatest impact
was in Victoria, and in large tracts of New
South Wales and South Australia. Due to the major fires in Victoria
during summer, Emergency Management Australia (EMA) invoked the Commonwealth
Disaster Plan, which provides a framework for the Australian Government to
assist state and territory government agencies when resources are limited.
EMA asked Geoscience Australia to
provide GIS mapping experts to work in conjunction with the Victorian Country
Fire Authority and the State’s Department of Sustainability and Environment.
For more information on Geoscience Australia’s
role, visit http://www.ga.gov.au/ausgeonews/ausgeonews200703/gis.jsp.
Greenfleet uses
GIS in their Fight against Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Greenfleet, a not-for-profit organisation that
focuses on reducing the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from Australian
transport, is now using GIS to help in their mission to offset these emissions. Greenfleet uses GIS to verify, map,
and report the planting of native trees as part of their Trees & Technology
program, which aims to reduce the impact of vehicles on the environment. By incorporating GIS into their business
processes, Greenfleet can ensure that they meet industry standards in
carbon accounting, monitor and record the environmental outcomes that they
achieve for their supporters, deliver presentations of outcomes achieved to
input into national natural resource management databases, and develop
education tools for the broader community.
“Since integrating GIS into Greenfleet’s operation, it has improved our
efficiency and provided real cost savings in delivery outcomes to our
supporters”, said Greenfleet’s Brendan Vollemaere.
http://www.esriaustralia.com.au/company/files/news/fD00339_00.pdf
Source: ESRI Australia
Space Scientists to take
the Earth’s Pulse
Dozens of international satellite and modelling
experts met in Canberra on
8 March to discuss how to improve observations of the Earth to better
understand and predict climate change, water availability, and natural
disasters. CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research’s Dr Alex
Held, organiser of the two-day international meeting, says the researchers are
planning to use a complex system of sensors, communication devices, storage
systems and other technologies to take the Earth’s pulse. “The Global Earth Observation System of
Systems, or GEOSS, will benefit society in a number of ways, by providing
better understanding of climate change and the water cycle, improved weather
information, better natural disaster warnings, and ways to monitor and conserve
biodiversity,” Dr Held says. “Our
aim is for GEOSS to bring together information from satellites, Earth system
models, and other data to improve our understanding of the interactions between
the ocean, atmosphere and land. Drawing
on state-of-the-art technologies, GEOSS will assimilate streams of satellite
data into computer models to improve predictions.” Dr
Held says that GEOSS aims to monitor continuously the state of the Earth to
increase understanding and enhance prediction of the Earth system, and provide
timely, quality, long-term, global information as a basis for sound decision
making. The workshop is one of a series
being held around the world in 2007 to give users and providers of Earth
Observation information an opportunity to better understand GEOSS and its
benefits for society.
http://www.csiro.au/news/ps2v9.html
A Bird’s Eye
View from ACRES Satellites
A new visualisation tool on the ACRES web page will
allow visitors to get a real-time, bird’s eye view of the planet from our suite
of Earth observing satellites. The front
page of the tool displays a list of all satellites from which ACRES acquires
data. After selecting a satellite, a ‘third
party’ web tool called Earth Viewer displays a representation of Earth below
the current position of that particular satellite.
To view the visualisation tool, please go to http://www.ga.gov.au/acres/acres_view.jsp
Spatial Jobs Online International Expansion
Spatial Jobs Online is Australia’s only online jobs notice
board dedicated to the Spatial Industry. The site provides an industry specific choice
for employers and agencies searching for the right candidate, and job seekers
looking for the right opportunity in the Spatial Industry. This month the services have been expanded
into the United
Kingdom (www.spatialjobs.co.uk),
Germany
(www.spatialjobs.de)
and Spain
(www.spatialjobs.es). The sites are all interconnected using a central
database so visitors to any of the sites can view and search for vacancies in
other countries. New sites are planned for the Middle East, South Africa, Asia, India and North America in
the coming months, giving it a truly global reach.
For more information or a FREE trial of any of the new
sites, contact Dean Howell at info@spatialjobs.com.au
or visit any of the sites to list your vacancy.
http://www.crcsi.com.au/pages/news.aspx?NewsArticleID=357&Display=1
News from Around the Globe
USGS Collaborates on Unique, Comprehensive View of Antarctica
The
US Geological Survey (USGS) in collaboration with the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is
developing a unique and versatile map of Antarctica using satellite imagery. The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica, or
LIMA, combines nearly 1100 hand-selected Landsat satellite scenes that are
being digitally woven together to create a single, seamless, cloud-free image
of the Antarctic continent-the most detailed colour representation of this vast
and frozen landmass ever produced. In
conjunction with the new mosaic, researchers with the LIMA project are creating an
Antarctic Web portal and online map which will be available in the near future.
From this portal, anyone will be able to
download the mosaic in sections, as well as any of the individual Landsat
scenes used to create it. “The optical
remote sensing characteristics of the Landsat sensor, and other satellite
observations, provide a unique, never-before-seen view of this critical
continent of the Earth system, and the availability of the final data set via
internet-based tools will represent a tremendous scientific asset for the
global Earth science community,” said R.J. Thompson, Director of EROS.
For
more information, visit the US Geological Survey: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1630
Helping Troops tell Friend
from Foe
Emerging
technologies could soon help reduce the number of friendly fire incidents on
the battlefield. One simple system,
called Rover, is already improving mission accuracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. The system allows the air controller on the
ground to see the battlefield through the aircraft pilot's eyes, before a bomb
is released. Experts claim that if Rover
had been available in 2003, the “friendly fire” death of British soldier Matty
Hull might have been avoided. For more
information, visit http://www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/mg19325926.000-helping-troops-tell-friend-from-foe.html
Source:
New Scientist
Ordnance
Survey to Provide Greater Choice in Spatial Addressing across Great Britain
Housing associations, the utilities industry and
public-sector organisations are among those who will benefit from the new
ability to define their area of interest to the hectare (1% of a km²). This new service is in addition to the
existing km2 service for customers of the OS MasterMap Address Layer
and OS MasterMap Address Layer 2 products. “Being able to better define the area of
interest has already seen some quotes being reduced by 25%, which is great news
for our customers,” says Cara Reed, Senior Product Manager. “This will enable more customers to access
the value of consistent and authoritative address information for England, Scotland and Wales, and
provides a solution for customers who want to get comprehensive and accurate
address information for small areas at the right price.”
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/media/news/2007/feb/hectareaddressing.html
Better Geographical Data: Conciliation Agreement Approved
by European Parliament on INSPIRE
Europe needs better map-based information to support
its policies, especially on the environment. A new database designed to achieve this -
known as INSPIRE - should be in place by early 2009. Parliament and the Council struck a deal which
was approved by Members of the European Parliament which will enable data to be
shared across the EU, without undermining high quality services in the Member
States.
INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in
the Community), a project put forward by the European Commission in July 2004,
aims to pool and improve the standard of geographical data generated in the
various EU Member States (such as satellite images, temperature records,
rainfall levels) in order to improve the planning and implementation of
Community policies in areas such as the environment, transport, energy and
agriculture. This should lead to better
understanding of problems such as floods or air and water pollution, which
recognise no national borders.
For
more information, visit the INSPIRE website at http://www.ec-gis.org/inspire/home.html
http://www.ec-gis.org/inspire/home.html.
Lost Mountains: Google
Earth Adds New Layer of Destruction To Imagery
Quite possibly one of the more innovative (and
eye-opening) applications as a result of the Internet is the wonder that is
Google Earth. Once relegated to the
underground confines of the Defense Department or CIA, now anyone can swoop
above the Earth with satellite imagery and zero in on their home or other
locations in fine detail. So, while
Google Earth can show you the wonders of our blue planet like you’ve never seen
them before, it also reveals mankind’s impact and destruction. Those of you that are familiar with the
concept of mountaintop removal (in which entire mountains are leveled for coal)
might have viewed before and after pictures of scenes in and around the
Appalachin Mountains.
Read
more at Groovy Green: http://groovygreen.com/groove/?p=1149.
KGB Trumped Ordnance Survey on UK Mapping
Detailed maps of the United Kingdom created by the KGB between 1950 and 1990 have
gone on sale in digital format for the first time. The maps show 16,000 square kilometres and
103 UK town and cities in more detail than Ordnance Survey
maps. The Russians used satellite images
and spies on the ground to create the maps, which include army camps and
warehouses that don’t appear on other maps.
The maps include other information likely to be useful for an invading
army, such as the height of bridges and depths and contours of river beds. Little is known of the
how the USSR
acheived such a mammoth task. The
military cartography department was created in 1919 and the first map of the UK
dates from 1938. The project accelerated
from the mid-50s as the Cold War intensified.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/23/kgb_maps_for_sale/
Google KML Search: what does it mean for Geospatial
Professionals?
There's
been a lot of coverage of Google’s recent announcement via a blog of a KML
search capability from Google Earth and Google Search. In Directions Magazine, Michael Jones, Google’s
Chief Technologist for Google Earth, Maps, Local answered some questions to
clarify what it does, how it works and explored some of its implications for
searching for geodata.
http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=2409&trv=1
Source: Directions
Magazine
Upcoming Events
Orkestrate:
GIS Evolutions 2007 Geospatial Information Technology Strategies
27-28 March
2007, Swissotel, Sydney
From environmental impact assessment and emergency
response, to Australia’s biggest road construction project and the introduction
of Google Earth, ‘GIS Evolutions’ 2007 reflects the gradual expansion of GIS
use from fringe to enterprise-wide applications, and promises to be as
fascinating and invaluable as ever. The annual
Orkestrate ‘GIS Evolutions’ will once again bring together a strong mixture of
local and international presentations to share their experiences in applying
key spatial strategies in a rapidly changing global scenario. For more information, visit the conference
website.
Map
Middle East 2007
9-11 April
2007, Dubai International Convention
and Exhibition Centre, Dubai, UAE
The
Middle
East
region, with the encouraging developmental setting, adequate infrastructure and
growing investments in this region, holds a promising future for GeoSpatial
Technologies and their applications. The
theme for Map Middle East 2007, the third annual conference and exhibition on geospatial
technologies and their applications, is “GeoSpatial Convergence – The Next Step”. For more information, visit http://mapmiddleeast.org/.
Spatial
Sciences Institute International Biennial Conference 2007
14-18 May
2007, Hotel Grand Chancellor, Hobart, Tasmania
The
conference theme, “The Spatial Sciences Revolution - Powering the Information
Generation”, reflects the revolutionary way that the spatial sciences have
begun to permeate everyday life, and also the manner in which the industry has
re-invented itself to accommodate new challenges. The program will offer a wide selection of
local, national and international keynote and invited speakers, and a variety
of half and full day workshops will be available prior to the conference
program. Poster presentations will also
play a key role in the scientific program.
For more information, visit http://www.ssc2007.com/.
Twenty-Seventh
Annual ESRI International User Conference
18-22 June
2007, San Diego Convention Centre, California
The
ESRI User Conference is a forum for users to come together and discuss what's
new and what's next for GIS in their region or industry. Users from more than
120 countries come to learn new skills, share information and discover best
practices and tips and tricks that they can instantly use. For more
information, visit http://www.esri.com/events/uc/index.html.
Spatially
Enabled Government
14-15 August
2007, Hyatt Hotel, Canberra
Spatially
Enabled Government is the only event of its kind, specifically dedicated to
discussing key issues and challenges with the use of spatial information in the
Australian Government. The conference
will feature case studies and presentations around the growing use of spatial
data in the public sector. For more
information, visit the conference
website.
WALIS
International Forum 2008
12-14 March
2008, Perth Convention Exhibition
Centre, Perth
The call for papers is now open! WALIS Forum is one of the premier GIS events
in Australia, attracting over 650 participants from a diverse range of professions.
WALIS Forum is one of the premier GIS events in Australia,
attracting over 650 participants from a diverse range of professions. For more information, visit the conference
website at http://www.walis.wa.gov.au/forum/ http://www.walis.wa.gov.au/forum/
or email forum@walis.wa.gov.au to
register your interest.
Interesting Website of the Month
Global
Health Atlas
In a single electronic platform, the World Health
Organisation’s Communicable Disease Global Atlas brings together for analysis
and comparison standardised data and statistics for infectious diseases at
country, regional, and global levels. The
analysis and interpretation of data are further supported through information
on demography, socioeconomic conditions, and environmental factors. The system aims to provide a single point of
access to data, reports and documents on the major diseases of poverty, the
diseases on their way towards eradication and elimination, epidemic prone and
emerging infections and anti-infective drug resistance.
http://www.who.int/globalatlas/
Disclaimer: The information contained in this newsletter is provided for general information purposes. It does not constitute professional or expert advice and you must not use or rely upon it for that purpose. WALIS and the State of Western Australia, do not guarantee and do not accept responsibility for the accuracy, currency, completeness and reliability of the information contained in this newsletter. The opinions contained in the information do not necessarily reflect the opinions of WALIS or the State of Western Australia. Links to other Internet sites are provided for your convenience only and they do not constitute an endorsement, approval or recommendation of the material contained in those other Internet sites. It is your responsibility to evaluate the relevance, accuracy, completeness and reliability of material contained in those other Internet sites.