Bosses at the giant Department of Human Services have more faith in technology than in their 36,000 public servants in delivering welfare payment reform, a conference in Canberra has been told. Department deputy secretary John Murphy said technology, an area where his department has struggled, was likely to be “the easiest part of the journey” of spending $1.5 billion in taxpayers’ money replacing the Centrelink payment system. The former NAB banker has told a tech conference the biggest challenge of the change program would be engaging and winning over the department’s 35,000 employees. The department has been riven by industrial strife since 2014 with workers now having rejected three times a new workplace agreement they fear would strip them of conditions and entitlements.
