MEDIA RELEASE

What happens when you put Master of Disaster Stuart Robert in charge of the $1.5b scheme to overhaul welfare payment IT?
 
According to an audit published yesterday by the Australian National Audit Office, Mr Robert’s agency Services Australia has failed to monitor costs, failed to work out how to move information between systems, and failed to addressed cyber security threats.
 
The report found Services Australia: 

• Did not monitor the cost of operating the current welfare system at all and so was “unable to … assess the ongoing value for money of this expenditure.
• “Has failed to establish appropriate arrangements to migrate data to the future welfare payment system.”
• “Did not apply an appropriate framework to manage cyber security risk, as it did not either cyber security risk assess or accredit all elements of the system.”

Mr Robert, who blamed imaginary hackers for one of the MyGov crashes he presided over,  should have been paying more attention to genuine cyber security risks.
 
Clearly Mr Robert is what online gamers would call a ‘noob’, someone who has absolutely no idea what they are doing. 
 
Australians are sick of the endless tech bungles from this digital noob.
 
From defending Robodebt to giving the nation the underwhelming COVIDSafe tracing app, Mr Robert never fails to muck up his brief.
 
And now the Audit Office has revealed his stewardship of the Welfare Payment Infrastructure Transformation program is just the latest digi-bungle from the master of disaster.

FRIDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER 2020