What’s the real story with TRELIS?

WA Auditor General Des Pearson delivered a mixed report last week on the development of the transport licencing system TRELIS. Judging by the interpretations provided by the government and the opposition, you’d think they had read different reports. Department for Planning and Infrastructure director general Greg Martin said the report gave TRELIS technology “a thumbs up”. “After some initial teething problems, TRELIS is now a reliable and critical whole of government information system,” he said. In contrast, shadow minister Simon O’Brien used the report to attack planning and infrastructure minister Alannah MacTiernan. “As a double blow to the Minister’s credibility, today’s Auditor General’s report into the TRELIS system highlights the Minister’s incompetence, showing the system was implemented two years late and will cost taxpayers $82.2 million by mid-2009,” Mr O’Brien said. “The report shows that the early stages of TRELIS implemented by the Liberal Government came in on time and on budget, but as soon as Alannah MacTiernan took over in 2001 there were cost blowouts and time delays.” The Note feels that’s a very generous interpretation, given that the Auditor General traced many of the problems with TRELIS to the project’s inception, including “poor specification of business requirements”, software development problems, and funding on an incremental basis.