The program, which forced departments to contract out responsibility for their computer systems, has come under fire in the wake of the Humphry report into Federal Government IT outsourcing. The Finance Minister, Mr Fahey, who is responsible for the IT program, has also faced a barrage of criticism after the release of the report, which said the Government's outsourcing processes were deeply flawed. The issue has become so politically charged that Mr Fahey's office took the extraordinary step of seeking changes to the wording of an independent publication. His office sought changes to a media release that accompanied a survey published by the Institution of Engineers, which showed governments lacked the expertise to contract out work. Typically, contracts ended up costing 15 per cent more than the original contract price, the survey showed.
Government agencies can also impose financial penalties when contractors fail to deliver.
But the quarantine service and Ipex said penalties had not been discussed. But Labor's spokeswoman on information technology, Senator Kate Lundy, said that even if Ipex was penalised it might not stop the problem happening again. It's a very big political issue for the Government as well as a contractual issue for the department and the vendor. Initially the quarantine service expected its system to be fixed within 24 hours, but yesterday afternoon Ipex contractors were still working to restore it. The crash destroyed 160 gigabytes of data, roughly the equivalent of eight PC hard drives.