LABOR EXPOSES ANOTHER HUMILATING I.T. FAILURE

The Turnbull government has abruptly ended the Australian Apprenticeships Management System (AAMS) project after questions first raised by Labor 12 months ago exposed the ongoing failure of the project. Media reports claim the costs have already exceeded $20 million with no end in sight for a project that was originally to cost $10 million.

Education Minister Simon Birmingham must now accept responsibility for this multimillion dollar fiasco, and come clean about when he was first aware of the problem. He should stop blaming junior Ministers and departmental officers, and answer publicly why he allowed this massive waste of public funds to occur.

This is a significant blow to the apprenticeship management system, which is still operating on an IT platform that needed upgrading or replacement in 2012.

This is another demonstration of a government consumed by internal chaos and too focused on saving their own jobs to look after the public interest.

Labor will continue to pursue this through Budget Estimates, but in the meantime, Minister Birmingham must come out and answer questions that hang over the future of the apprenticeship management IT system.

Only after being questioned by Labor did Minister Birmingham begin to pay attention to this issue. Given the obvious issues with the system, it is outrageous Minister Birmingham authorised expenditure of $185,497 on a PWC report.

Simon Birmingham is the Cabinet Minister responsible, and he was alerted to these problems by Labor a year ago. To have wasted over five years on replacing the AAMS system and now have to go back to the drawing board and start again is his failure. He must take responsibility.