Last week's hearing of Australia's Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, which convened in part to discuss Australia's planned communications metadata retention laws, produced high farce.

Despite having been lampooned for previously being unable to offer a definition of metadata, Attorney General George Brandis was not able to do so again. Nor could he explain why a hearing into the legislation was not able to produce a definitive version of what metadata Australia proposed to collect.

Pressed on the matter, Hansard records that Brandis offered up this set of words:

I think the problem here is that the term 'metadata' is not a term of art; it is not a technical term. Perhaps the best way to approach this is to say that this is the character, this is the technical description, of what is caught by the legislation, rather than say, 'This is the definition of metadata'. So, we define with particularity and specificity that which is caught.

Things got worse when witnesses from the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation admitted they were yet to hand their metadata wish lists to Brandis, rendering the day's proceedings largely moot. The draft dataset had at least been waved beneath telcos' noses, to general disapproval. But there was little evidence of contemplation about just which order carts and horses should assume.

The telcos and ISPs that will be most impacted by data retention laws were therefore neatly rendered an afterthought, with citizens' rights even further off the radar.

That mess was typical of the Australian IT community's policy experience in 2014, lowlights of which included research house NICTA being stripped of all funding and a plan to embed computational thinking in the national curriculum was sidelined and probably binned.

Government has paid lip service to the notion of electronic service delivery, but found it needed to correct the past idiocy of a weak password regime on government portals before it could get under way. Yet 15 months into its term, the government has no electronic services to show off and no strategy to do so other than an intention to unashamedly ape the UK's efforts.

Bones were thrown to startup-land in the form of enthusiasm for better employee share schemes. Startup-land will doubtless be asking for more assistance any second now, heaping humiliation upon itself by promising growth on a scale that won't eventuate.

Also notable were a long beta period for a simple Australia.gov.au update, a tilt at making social networks nominally accountable for failing to respond to allegations of child bullying, a cloud-first policy for governemnt agencies that gave them all leeway to ignore it and an anti-piracy policy that told Big Content to get a court order before labelling anyone a pirate.

Then there's the National Broadband Network (NBN). It's important to acknowledge that NBN Co has, under new management and a new minister, become a more professional, predictable and often impressive outfit. NBN Co now communicates more often, more effectively, in more detail, and appears to be making better progress.

But the company's openness vanishes under pressure, so a leaked portfolio of documents describing an apparently cheaper method of fibre-to-the-premises installation was denied half-heartedly, raising suspicions that ideology is behind the policy of a “faster, cheaper” multi-technology mix, rather than a sober technology decision.

Opposition to the current NBN plan continues, often, to appear a petulant reaction to the loss of FTTP rather than grappling with economic realities and NBN Co's obvious past management difficulties.

Yet the government continues to explain the NBN as a necessary evil, rather than a potentially transformative project.

That the government appears to view technology as a source of cost saving and not much else doesn't help. Malcolm Turnbull's remark that only irrational “box huggers” find cloud too risky demonstrated this neatly, by showing that if there's an easy-to-understand outcome - less spending by government agencies, a way to stop criminals – then careful thinking needs to get out of the way in favour of capital A Action.

If that approach hadn't worked so dismally for the NBN, it would almost be funny to see it wheeled out again.

Instead it's a final humiliation for Australia's technology industries, which are ignored when they contemplate the future, attract lip service when they're being imposed upon and are derided when they act according to the realities of the present.

So Merry Christmas, Australian IT workers. May the New Year be happier. ®