Shadow immigration spokesman Tony Burke said Labor supported the use of biometrics in border control applications, and would continue to support SmartGate – which will use facial recognition software to process passengers faster and automatically assess risk threats.
But Mr Burke said there remained unresolved technical issues hampering the project.
And pointing to Customs’ disastrous 2005 cargo management reengineering project – which was monstrously over-budget and did not work, causing container log jams at Australian ports – said there was reason to be sceptical about SmartGate’s implementation.
Pointing to Customs’ 05-06 Annual Report, Mr Burke said the department had identified technical problems during the initial phases of the project, they would be all ironed-out by the time SmartGate was fully operational.
“The Howard government is asking us to take the Customs assurances of successful IT contract management on faith and on face value,” Mr Burke said. “The problem is that we have just had the release of an audit report into Customs’ last IT project, which was the Customs cargo management system.”
“That project was approved without a financial management plan, costed on the basis of a stab in the dark, and delivered years late and approximately $200 million over budget.
“Labor has good reason to question the government’s ability to manage the implementation of systems technology in this area.”
He said the Australian public would have been horrified to learn that when the cargo management systems were introduced in 2005, government ordered Customs to “turn off” critical risk threat system that checked Sea and Air cargo – including anti-terrorism threats – because of problems with the project.
“The government is spending considerable money on immigration and customs related IT systems,” Mr Burke said. “However, based on the IT systems contract management we have seen to date, it is simply not up to scratch.”
“Simply spending money does not address a problem or an issue. It must be targeted, robust and effective, he said.”
“While Labor supports the move to biometric authentication systems, we do have concerns with the government’s approach to go it alone internationally and to iron out identified problems with the SmartGate system during its introduction,” Mr Burke said.
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