Labor went public yesterday with findings that 541 laptop computers, costing AU$1.5 million, and AU$230,000 worth of computer equipment were reported lost or stolen by the federal government last year. Shadow Minister for IT Kate Lundy expressed concerns that four major departments had failed to explain the missing equipment and suggested they were covering up the fact that confidential information had been lost along with the laptops. The departments in the spotlight are Health and Ageing, the Department of Defence, the Attorney General's department and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
The office for the Attorney General told ZDNet Australia yesterday that its failure to explain the disappearance of 17 laptops from seven of its agencies, including the Australian Federal Police, ASIO and the Australian Bureau of Criminal Investigation, was due to a -communication breakdown" in the department and not because it was hiding the fact that possibly damaging information had gone astray.
"This is a third-term government...this is the Attorney General's department," Senator Lundy's spokesperson said. "I just find that the lamest of excuses."
The ATO told ZDNet Australia it believed answers to the Opposition's questions about vanished computer equipment had been submitted in December, but conceded it was probably after the deadline. It declined to comment further.
A spokesperson for the Minister for the Department of Defence, Senator Robert Hill, said she was chasing up whether the information was -available" and pointed out the Minister, currently in Kuwait, was -new to the portfolio".
The Department for Health and Ageing admitted that in the financial year 2000-2001 eight laptops were stolen and three were reported "lost".
"Our questions were next in line to be answered when the Election was called," at which time the Senate broke up, a departmental spokesperson told ZDNet Australia. She said the department would be "more than happy" to answer those questions this year.
On the question of possible confidential information being compromised, the spokesperson said: "As far as i know that's not an issue."
Senator Lundy's office remained un-impressed by the departments' explanations.
-They've all basically come up with these totally wishy-washy excuses that are not acceptable at all," Lundy's spokesperson said. -They know these questions are going to be asked, they're not new questions," he added.
Labor said that none of the four departments had been in contact to offer their explanations and it didn't expect to hear anything from them until it resubmitted its questions to them at the next round of Senate Estimates in February. "Obviously these departments have gotten away with not answering," the spokesperson said.
As well as asking the departments why they had failed to answer the questions in the requisite time last year, Labor will be seeking information on the cost to taxpayers of the lost computer equipment.
