Goff Phil: Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16532. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):The Committee has discovered two things tonight. Firstly it has discovered that there has been a budget blowout from $76 million to $89 million. That is a 17 percent increase. I would like the Minister in the chair the Minister of Customs to tell the Committee whether he thinks that is the end of the cost increase. Is he prepared to guarantee to the Committee that this budget will not keep blowing out? It is a 17 percent increase Minister. When did you find out about that increase and why has it been only tonight that we have been able to extract that information from you?Hon Maurice Williamson: It’s been answered at the select committee.Hon PHIL GOFF: I was at the select committee. There was no talk there about an increase in the budget. There was no talk there about any problems. There was no talk there about the process having been delayed as you said a moment ago by a further 2 months. Why did it require us to extract this information now from you when in anybody’s terms a 17 percent blowout in the budget is significant? It is not minor.I want to pick up another point that the Minister made. He said that there were two significant changes in requirements that led to this. Actually I have a little bit of institutional memory Minister. I remember exactly those words being used in regard to INCIS. Why did INCIS costs go up and balloon and blow out and why did INCIS then fail? It was because the Government kept requiring of the system new things that it added on to the original requirements. And now you have come into the Chamber and said to us as I understand it—but correct me if I am wrong—that the Government has made two new significant requirements of the computer system which it did not require in the first instance. That is the path to IT failure. That is the path to a ballooning-out in the costs of any project. That is exactly how INCIS began and you are telling us that that is happening now.I do want to take exception to your comments about being sneaky. You know it is not sneaky for people to be up front and honest and tell us that there is a problem with the system—people in industry or people in the Customs Service. I will tell you what is sneaky. Sneaky is a Government that is not up front honest and transparent about the fact that it has got a major problem and you have got to extract the truth out as if you are pulling teeth one at a time in a very painful process—and we still have not got the truth.I want to know what those two significant changes in requirements were. Was that as a result of a failure of the Government to anticipate what was needed or was that a result of the failure of IBM to deliver what it promised? We are told that IBM has to meet its contractual obligations. They are the terms the Minister used. Using those terms implies immediately that IBM is failing to meet its contractual obligations.I think you have an obligation Minister to tell us why IBM is failing to meet its obligations. Look Hansard will show it. I took a note of the words the Minister used and they were: if they do not meet their contractual obligations then they will be able to be held to account. I am paraphrasing perhaps but that is the message that the Minister gave. So I want to know where the problems originated. Did they originate in the inability of the Government to get it right or in the incompetence of the Government or is it the failure of the IBM company to deliver what it promised to deliver? It is a fair enough question. It is pretty fundamental pretty basic and that is one question that the Minister should be able to give an answer to in the Committee tonight.I want to know what elements of the system are not working. The Minister has talked about “defects”—that was his word—in the system. What are those defects? What impact are they having on the ability of the system to deliver? Is it correct that CusMod was due to be retired by now but is still being kept going because the new IT system will not work on its own and cannot be relied on? That is another straightforward question Minister and it is one that the Committee deserves an answer to tonight. What are the defects? How much longer will we keep CusMod going? What is the final cost of the budget blowout going to be? Is the $89 million the full and final cost of this venture or will it go up each time we ask questions about it? Will there be ongoing problems? [Bell rung] Mr Chairman?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No the member has had four calls. I am going to call Paul Goldsmith.