The government will have to explain cost blowouts, website crashes and wayward projects that have marred its IT upgrades after the Senate voted to support a probe into its $10 billion tech spend.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
After Labor revealed it was pushing for a parliamentary inquiry, it won crossbench support on Wednesday to review the Coalition's tech program following multiple IT-related controversies that have shredded its reputation for digital services.
But the government says the inquiry will be a waste of money and accused the opposition of "political games".
Labor senator Jenny McAllister, chairing the inquiry, and opposition digital economy spokesman Ed Husic said in a joint statement it was critical to make sure the $10 billion spent on IT upgrades gave value for money, considering cuts to education and health spending.
"The inquiry will be at its most productive if the government adopts an open and transparent attitude," they said.
"Labor looks forward to finding out why so many Turnbull government digital projects have failed and what can be done to stop it happening again."
Assistant Minister for Digital Transformation Angus Taylor said the inquiry was a distraction and that the government had improved oversight of digital projects.
The Coalition was finalising a Digital Transformation Agency review of 50 programs across agencies and more than 250 critical business systems, he said.
Tech spending by the public service and military establishment has soared from $6.7 billion in the 2014-15 financial year to $9.3 billion in 2015-16 and it was projected to grow by another $300 million last year. Labor expects the inquiry to focus on IT project failures culminating in the infamous "censusfail" debacle, the Department of Human Services' "robo-debt" controversy and Tax Office web outages.
NAPLAN's online systems, the DHS' troubled Child Support upgrades, and the role of the DTA will also bear the brunt of the probe's scrutiny.
As the government hands the national postal plebiscite on same sex marriage to the Australian Bureau of Statistics despite concerns about the agency following job cuts and the short lead-up to the survey, the inquiry will also look into the ABS' readiness for the task given failures during the 2016 census.
Senator McAllister later told media the DTA hadn't been able to explain its purpose and the way it would lead digital upgrades.
"My great concern is the government really hasn't clearly defined what it expects around digital transformation," she said.
"There is no reason the public sector should not be as good as the private sector and that should be our aspiration."
New DTA boss Gavin Slater on Wednesday welcomed the inquiry as a chance for the agency to be transparent, while the Community and Public Sector Union warned against "public service bashing" in giving its support to the review.
Labor says the government had ignored calls to investigate its IT problems earlier this year.
Follow Doug Dingwall on Twitter.
