Labour Accuses Customs of ICS Cover Up
Labour Accuses Customs of ICS Cover Up
March 15, 2006: The Labour government has attacked the Australian Customs Service over its new integrated cargo system (ICS) saying that Customs fostered a culture of “culture of cover-up" when defending the systems shortcomings.
The ICS suffered a series of disastrous software failures last year that caused massive delays processing imports. However, Customs has revealed that along with these system crashes and processing delays, the ICS software also contained security errors that allowed customs brokers to access each other's restricted cargo details.
Problems with the ICS system surfaced immediately when it went live on October 12, 2006. At that time Customs repeatedly rejected media claims that the system was not up to scratch
However, a leaked report said that Customs knew the $202 million ICS system had errors and only half the amount of processing power required.
Opposition Justice and Customs spokesman Senator Joe Ludwig seized upon this saying: "The level of the performance of the system when it was switched on was completely unbelievable."It defies belief that they would go ahead with switching on a system that they knew did not have all the functionality it was supposed to.” he continued. “The breadth and magnitude of this failure is such that it is hard to know how anyone could possibly have thought the system was ready to go live.”
Senator Ludwig called on Customs Minister Chris Ellison to present an update on how the system is now performing and release the findings of a project “health-check” that was completed last year. The Government is refusing to release this document citing cabinet confidentiality.
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