> "It is unbelievable a private consultancy was paid $78 million to redesign the website," Mr Littleproud said.

This is the crux of the issue. If you have outsourced software engineering competency, yet one of your core missions is maintaining a large pile of software, then this is the inevitable result.

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stephen_g 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Of course one really ‘unbelievable’ thing is that this infrastructure upgrade contract (including the website) was actually initiated and approved by the previous Government (since voted out to opposition) that Littleproud was part of back in 2017…

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jihadjihad 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The private consultancy likely outsourced pieces of the work to (far) lesser-paid subcontractors, too.

I would imagine the margins on that project to be astronomical.

	▲	trollbridge 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		My primary competition is guys who are good at marketing, sell expensive packages, and then have someone in the Phillipines or Vietnam do the actual work for a tiny fraction of what is paid. My primary source of business is customers who paid a lot for they and didn’t get what they asked for and then the vendor blames it all on their subcontractor, or expects more money at astronomical rates. For example $200 an hour for basic WordPress customisation.