Arabic version: تحقيق يكشف ثقافة عمل ضارة في مشروع أكاسيا بإقليم الشمال

According to ABC News, a parliamentary inquiry has found a “toxic” workplace culture within the Northern Territory’s Acacia health IT project harmed staff and contributed to problems delivering the $335 million patient record system.

The NT Public Accounts Committee released its almost 200-page final report into Acacia, which was designed to replace decades-old technology and integrate multiple NT Health patient record systems. The project has only partly been rolled out after several budget blowouts since it began 11 years ago.

The committee said evidence showed the culture within Acacia, which operated inside the Department of Corporate and Digital Development, was harmful to staff. It said it heard accounts in private hearings of distressing and clearly unacceptable behaviour by people in leadership positions, while noting it was not within the committee’s remit to attribute program failings to particular individuals.

The report said witnesses described work on the program as unpleasant, stressful, demanding and often thankless. It found the culture created high turnover, leading to lost institutional knowledge and resources being spent on recruitment and training. The committee also heard that concerns raised by staff were not constructively addressed, leaving serious challenges unresolved and discouraging people from speaking up because of fears of retribution.

About 80 per cent of Acacia’s workforce were contractors, an unusually high reliance compared with the rest of the NT public sector, the committee said. It raised concern that contract insecurity could facilitate retaliation and allow the culture to re-emerge. The committee made 11 recommendations, including that the department review contractor inductions so workers know their health and safety rights, and called for strict cost controls on any additional funding.