THE Queensland government is attempting to rewrite history by launching legal action against IBM over the failed health payroll system, the tech giant says.
PREMIER Campbell Newman confirmed on Sunday that the government will this week serve IBM with court documents over the system which was implemented under Labor in 2010.
Thousands of health staff were incorrectly paid when the system malfunctioned after its rollout by IBM, in a debacle that is expected to ultimately cost taxpayers $1.2 billion. “Queenslanders were wronged, we believe, in the pay affair,” Mr Newman told reporters on Sunday. “We intend to recover money for them – the taxpayers – the men and women of Queensland.” But IBM says the government’s lawsuit ignores the settlement it reached in 2010 to resolve the dispute. “The government’s lawsuit also seeks to run roughshod over the findings of its own Commission of Inquiry,” the company said in a statement. The commission’s report found no evidence that IBM had breached any law or contractual provision and the government was merely shifting blame, it said. “Instead, the Commission concluded: the primary cause of the problems suffered by the payroll system project was the state’s unjustified and grossly negligent conduct.”