A project to replace Tasmania’s ageing public sector HR systems has cost taxpayers $66.7 million so far, with the final bill expected to reach nearly $120 million, an auditor-general’s report has found.
The Department of Health spent $47 million over four years without delivering a single one of the intended modules, before the program was handed to the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPAC) in mid-2024.
Auditor-General Martin Thompson, in a report made public on Monday, said the concerns that prompted the audit “were justified”.
The new system is meant to serve the entire Tasmanian State Service – more than 35,000 full and part-time staff, 10,000 casual workers and 10,000 volunteers across 40-plus agencies and statutory authorities.
It would replace more than 40 separate systems currently used to manage payroll, rostering, recruitment and staff records.
The report found the Department of Health’s planning and early implementation were “not effective or economical”.
The original budget of $22 million blew out to $47 million and the program never made it to deployment.
Three critical design problems – how to interpret awards, how to handle staff with multiple jobs and how to standardise rostering – were flagged repeatedly from 2020 but never resolved.
“Health advised that many of the issues were buried deep in the organisation at the regional and unit levels and the steering committee did not have the reach to enable resolution,” the report said.
Thompson said the program drifted into being an IT build rather than the business transformation it needed to be.
Steering committees lacked the capability to govern a project of this scale.
The program was put on hold in early 2024 so an outside reviewer could examine whether the system was ready to roll out. That review prompted the handover to DPAC.
Since taking over, DPAC has spent another $19.7 million and estimates a further $53.1 million is needed.
The May 2025 state budget left a $28.3 million shortfall across the forward estimates.
The latest business case for the program was signed off earlier in May, the department said.
The report found governance had improved under DPAC, which has made progress on the three unresolved design problems and saw the first module go live in November 2025.
Department of Health secretary Dale Webster pushed back on the findings. He said the work built foundations the current program is now using.
“The HRIS program delivered substantial technical and non-technical outputs that established a foundational platform for ongoing HRIS reform,” Webster said.
Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Kathrine Morgan-Wicks said treating the work as two separate programs had skewed the analysis.
Premier Jeremy Rockliff also disagreed with the report’s framing, saying it gave conclusions that were “incomplete and, in material respects, potentially misleading”.
Independent Franklin MP Peter George said the report should “put the government to shame”.
“Without Mr Thompson’s vigilance, Tasmanians would have no idea how their money is flushed down the drain, time after time,” George said.
Both departments accepted the report’s three recommendations, which called for tighter business case approvals, better stakeholder engagement and clearer project checkpoints.
