Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

On any other given day, this bill, the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Digital Readiness and Other Measures) Bill 2016, would be completely and utterly non-controversial. In making those remarks, I want to stress that the intention is to leave it as just that. You heard from the shadow minister a very measured, detailed response to what is being proposed. You also could clearly tell from the contribution made by the shadow minister, the member for Kingston, that a degree of cooperation has been extended and there is an understanding of why this bill has been brought forward, an outline of what expectations are. But I also think that it is important, following the shadow minister's contribution to this debate, to reinforce that as an opposition—as much as this side obviously wants it to work and wishes for every single success in the project—we are watching this project like hawks. We are paying close attention to the way that this is being done. There is a clear reason why that is the case. This bill talks about an event that will see the system that has been designed to support our veterans and meet their needs being completely replaced with a new system, to ensure that the needs of veterans are met.

This digital transformation project, as I said, on any other given day would be non-controversial. However, we have had to watch in this country, through this government, a series of digital transformation projects that have gone off the rails. Of themselves they should have been no-brainers and should have just worked out, and they have not. It is not like this government does not have an agency in place to help the public sector with digital transformation. It has the Digital Transformation Agency, which is supposed to provide critical support for departments, like DVA, when they are undertaking projects like this. Yet what have we seen? We have seen the census fall over and become parodied, getting its own hashtag, 'censusfail', because the IT systems and the whole approach went off the rails. We saw what happened in Centrelink with the robo-debt disaster. We saw the ATO's website crash for days. After that period of time, the ATO were publicly asked, 'What happened?' and they said, 'We don't know.' They still do not have an answer as to why the ATO system, which sees the transfer of really sensitive data between the public and the ATO and accountants and the ATO, completely crashed. There was no answer for it. That crash was so bad that the ATO have sent out the signal that this year's tax time may be delayed until they work out what is going to happen with that system. We also saw the Child Support Agency and their IT system upgrade being flagged as potentially having problems. So we have seen it with the ABS, we have seen it with Centrelink, we have seen it with the ATO, we have seen it with the CSA, and now we are worried that it could happen with the DVA. It should not be the case.

The Digital Transformation Agency were before estimates this week, and their interim CEO, Nerida O'Loughlin, was asked: 'With all these things that happen, all these digital transformation projects, all these system upgrades, IT upgrades, what advice and support did the DTA, the Digital Transformation Agency, provide? What did you do to help government departments in their digital transformation efforts?' Stunningly, when all those things that I just mentioned to the House were put to the DTA in estimates, they said: 'We've not been involved. We were not previously involved in any of those particular projects you mentioned'—not one. The Digital Transformation Agency was not involved in digital transformation. DTA MIA—missing in action, not around when they are needed the most.

There is another important point to make on this. When people were being affected by the Centrelink robo-debt mess, where were the DTA? Missing. What happened as a result of that? The DTA announced in late January that they would get involved. The bulk of the mess was through early January—that is when we saw it really peak—and the DTA were completely missing in action and then said, 'We'll help.' After the bulk of the suffering and the pain and the inconvenience happened, the Digital Transformation Agency said, 'We'll get involved.'

Also what is important on a project like the one being debated in the bill is that the DTA set up last year—it was announced by Assistant Minister Angus Taylor—a program management office. It was described as a small, high-calibre team that would come in to help with all the IT projects happening across the place. Then, a few weeks ago, I noticed that the assistant minister proudly announced the creation of another body, called the investment management office. In estimates this week we said, 'You set up a project management office and now you've set up an investment management office. Both offices are within the DTA.' So within the DTA they have a PMO and an IMO. There is a growth sector in providing abbreviations within government. There are few answers for digital transformation, but 'We'll have an abbreviation for you in a jiffy.' When we asked them, 'Why do you have two bodies?' we were told it is effectively the same body. We asked, 'What? Why is it the same body and you have announced it twice?' They said, 'No, it's the same body. We renamed it because we didn't want the program management office, PMO, to be mistaken with the PMO which is the Prime Minister's Office.' It is almost straight out of Yes, Minister. But they renamed it. And the problem is: this is an office that is supposed to look, we are told, at IT investments over $10 million.

Any project within government will now be examined by what they now call the Digital Investment Management Office, the DIMO. So the DTA had PMO, which turned into IMO, which is now DIMO, and any project across government will fall within the view of this group. I am absolutely certain that the upgrade that will lie at the heart of this legislation will be more than $10 million—for sure; absolutely; I will bet that it will be. I do not know if there has been a figure publicly released on that; if there has been, I certainly welcome it. But it does not matter. The Digital Transformation Agency have said that they will be looking at and keeping a close eye on any project over $10 million.

So now the Digital Transformation Agency needs to spell out in clear and unambiguous terms what level of support it will be providing to the Department of Veterans' Affairs in the upgrade and implementation of this system. The DTA needs to spell out what its Digital Investment Management Office will be doing and what people within the agency—very capable people within the agency—will be doing to ensure that this program keeps on track and that it delivers, so that the system is in place and ready to help out our ex-service personnel and our ex-service organisations, which are the front line of managing, in many respects, concerns that veterans might have about the support given to them. These stakeholders are very important to everyone here in this place and in the community, and we need to make sure that the system that is supposed to support them is working. The Digital Transformation Agency, the DTA, can no longer be MIA, particularly in relation to this upgrade that is involving veterans. And, as I said, it needs to be able to tell us what it is going to do, because, at the moment, the DTA looks like nothing more than a think tank. It is not providing critical support. And I would be very interested to see what it has done in working with DVA on this.

The challenge is large. As the shadow minister spelt out in her contribution earlier, when the Commonwealth Ombudsman looked at the proposed implementation and what lies at the heart of this bill, the Ombudsman spelt out some of the challenges—in particular, that there needed to be an assurance that there would be better-practice principles in automated decision making and that there would be accuracy in data entry. The Ombudsman, I think, was quite fair in what it spelt out in the report, a copy of which I have here. It recognised that data entry errors are going to happen—it is understandable—but asked, 'What are you going to do to mitigate that risk and to minimise the prospect of that occurring?' It said, for example, that limiting the range of data to defined options can also result in limiting the effectiveness of information obtained, especially where there is a discretionary component requiring greater data capture to progress the decision process. So it has already spelt out some of the things that you have to be mindful of, and it said that it would be beneficial to include links to additional information where customers can explore in more depth the type and scope of information required.

So you have already had somebody spelling out the problem and a potential solution, talking about system errors and the impact that system errors have and saying that they are, in many instances, difficult to explain to members of the public and create a sense of suspicion around the motives of the agency. This has all been highlighted as a potential risk. Automated systems must follow basic legal values of lawfulness, fairness, transparency and efficiency, usability and accessibility. DVA needs to consider ongoing service provision for vulnerable clients. This includes providing a range of alternative data information collection avenues.

I think it is important that people do not get hypnotised by the words 'digital transformation' and believe that tech sorts everything out. The Ombudsman rightly points out that there should be call centres, shopfronts and other online options available to people when they need extra information. That is important as well. It also talks about system integration and testing. I have to say—and the shadow minister is present in the chamber today—that the reference to systems integration will be crucial. There will be legacy systems in place, and new systems in other departments. There will be a need to bring everything together so that it works cohesively. Again, what is the DTA going to do? What support and advice will it provide to the DVA in that enormously complex process? Again, we recognise that this is not easy. But there is already a body within government to provide support.

There are now questions and concerns as a result of the litany of problems with digital transformation. Will this flagged digital transformation within DVA go off the rails because the DTA is not providing support in things like system integration, or having alternative channels in place, or having information disseminated as the Ombudsman is saying needs to happen, or having a complaints-and-review process for where things go off the rails?

This is the thing: I think there is a realisation that, in even the best process, with the best plans and the best project management regime, there is going to be a problem at some point. Someone is going to have a problem with the system. We are not saying that this will be flawless and without error. But the Ombudsman rightly asks: 'What will be the complaint-and-review mechanism for when people do have that problem?' because it is going to occur. When you read the Commonwealth Ombudsman's contribution and you read the shadow minister's contribution, I think the community is genuinely concerned, based on track record and performance within other government departments.

This is not a partisan issue. On the digital transformation process itself, the opposition supported the government. We never criticised the government for forming, in the first place, a Digital Transformation Office. But you can see that things have been slow. You can see there is resistance within the highest levels of the public sector to digital transformation. They want to maintain fiefdoms. They want to maintain their own place and their own systems. But the fact of the matter is that, in this day and age, where systems integrate, everyone is working together and people depend on access to reliable government services, we cannot afford to have the silo mentality exist anymore. The DTA has an important role in bringing people together, and other departments have an important role in cooperating. We certainly wish the DVA and the government every success in this potential upgrade, but we will be watching them like hawks on this.

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