Instead of apologising for failing to create a much-needed Coronavirus tracing app that works, Government Services Minister Stuart Robert is trying to spin the Australian public.

Across the nation, state chief health officers have detailed that no contacts have been identified solely from the $2m app, prompting Mr Robert to remark: "That simply means that Australian memories are actually working quite well.”

On this twisted logic, Mr Robert could also celebrate the multiple crashes of the myGov website he has presided over as the triumph of landlines and traditional face-to-face communications.

In Stueyworld perhaps charging taxpayers $2,832 a month for his home internet is not rorting but a triumph of entrepreneurial innovation.

We know this Minister has a loose connection to reality: he blamed imaginary hackers for one of his myGov fails, and an imaginary eviction for closing a Melbourne Centrelink office.

We have seen the Robert approach on display with the failed and illegal Robodebt racket. He will deny there is a problem until standing among the ruins he must eventually apologise.

But the Prime Minister should stop putting his most hapless Minister and prime fantasist in charge of things that are too important to be bungled.

The $2m app has been beset by problems particularly on locked iPhones and older phones, and there is not an IT expert in the country who says this app is doing its job well.

Let’s be clear: a virus tracing app is a good idea and we encourage the public to engage with the concept - but it must work and it must make a difference.

I’m glad Mr Robert agrees with me that pen and paper is currently our best tracing app. But that is not something, after much hype and spending $2m of taxpayers’ money, the Minister should be celebrating.

FRIDAY, 17 JULY 2020

MEDIA CONTACT: LIAM HOULIHAN 0438 366 400