Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Blair for his questions. I am disappointed that he was not able to ask his own government those questions when they were in government—they were the ones who kept kicking the can down the road on these issues. I am pleased that he is prepared to support the government that is now taking up the challenge of dealing with this issue. He has a series of questions, which are all legitimate questions, and in the course of the implementation of this program various announcements will be made by the minister. I am sure the minister will go to the points that he has raised when those matters can be advised on by the minister. He has already rehearsed all the various announcements that have been made in relation to the various tranches. This is a program which is in its very early stages of implementation—it is the single biggest payments system ICT project in the world today. That is how big it is. Recruitment practices have been put in place to get the right expertise in to mould and frame what is an enormous undertaking, equivalent to major defence contracts and things of that nature. This is an enormous program, and this government was prepared to take on the challenge of something that will benefit generations of Australians. I do not think generations of Australians have been well served by the previous government, and other governments, allowing the system to just be kicked along from the time when Peter Brock won Bathurst. That is how long this thing has been around.

It is important that we now take the steps that we are taking in ensuring that we have this digital transformation of the way we deliver the payments system the country desperately needs. The people we are going to do that principally for are the taxpayers. They are the real clients of the welfare system. In my experience in business, clients are people who pay for things. I know those opposite take a different view of the welfare system and I think they see the entire population as clients of the welfare system, but on this side of the House we strongly believe that taxpayers are paying for this and they are the ones that we are going to respect more than anyone else when it comes to delivering this system. The taxpayers pay the bill.

The minister responsible has gone about the process of establishing $60.5 million, which reflects net funding of $169.3 million provided in years 2015 to 2017 with a net return to budget of $108 million, which will occur in years 2017 to 2019. There are lessons that will be learned from previous transformations, as minimal as they were. The Public Service jobs programs will be extremely large and complex tasks and these matters are being worked through. This is a seven-year project and as the efficiency of the ICT system improves, the staffing profile will also change to reflect the reduction in manual processes. As that proceeds, there will obviously be a lot of work to do to manage those transformations. The consultation through the expert advisory group, the consultation with those beneficiaries of the welfare system—

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