Australia 'closed for imports'

For this sacrifice, we have a system that was in a state of embarrassing unreadiness on the legislated cutover time from the old system (at 2.00am October 12). It should have been delivered as a turn-key project, start up and ready to go. Instead the users of this system have been flung into the Customs equivalent of the TV show Survivor: on this experimental island your business must outwit, outplay and outlast as you wade through workarounds, and shuffle through paper.

Industry has been put through the wringer with extended delays that reverberate right through the supply chain.

Customs is an organisation struggling for direction. It sorely needs strong ministerial leadership and guidance. Yet the present minister has been unwilling or unable to put his shoulder to the wheel. The general nonchalance with which the CMR blow-out is handled by both the minister and senior Customs officials is astonishing. And the costs haven’t stopped climbing.

It’s now time to re-open the senate inquiry into Customs IT outsourcing. Only a proper investigation can find out how things went so horribly wrong, but more important, make recommendations to prevent large-scale government IT projects from following the same tortuous path.