Federal access card - cost blowouts and none of your business

Its not a good look – the Senate Estimates Committee has been told that the first two contracts awarded in connection with the development of the Federal Government’s health and welfare smartcard were delivered late and over budget. And the business case for the whole project (part of a contract let to KPMG on an hourly charge rate that eventually cost $1.94 million) will not be released because the Government says its now redundant. Neither will it release the Privacy Impact Assessment that cost $160,000 – one of the consultants who prepared the assessment thinks it, like any other, should be publicly released.

What’s that – whatever happened to the trial of a new smart version of the medicare card in Tasmania? Well now that you ask, its been abandoned but the lessons, we are assured, will be picked up in the smartcard project.