The Australian Government’s digital projects

This section introduces the 110 projects underway across the Australian Government. While these projects vary dramatically in scale, complexity and duration, they are all harnessing digital technologies to deliver world-class digital capabilities and services for Australians.

Report overview

This report features 110 of the Australian Government’s most complex and strategically significant digital projects, involving a total investment of $12.9 billion. Note: This number and value of projects excludes projects that entered central oversight following the 2024–25 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) process, as well as any project data which has been withheld in the public interest (see Appendix for details).

To be included in this report, a project must:

primarily rely on digital technologies to achieve its aims
have been assigned a ‘tier’ rating, reflecting that it is a ‘major’ project sufficiently complex and strategically significant to require central oversight by the DTA.

While this report includes most high-profile projects, it does not cover all projects. For example, some projects are not sufficiently complex or strategically significant to receive a tier rating. Others have only recently been funded and will feature in future reports.

There are 3 possible tier ratings for digital projects, with higher tiered projects subject to increased levels of central monitoring and oversight:

Tier 1 projects are the Australian Government’s most complex and strategically significant digital projects.
Tier 2 projects are also complex and strategically significant, but with smaller scope, lower criticality and/or lower cost than Tier 1 projects.
Tier 3 projects are significant investments that generally represent lower risk.

Investment by sector
Digital projects under the DTA’s assurance oversight have been grouped into the following 9 sectors for the purposes of this report:
Healthcare and aged care
Industry, infrastructure and business
Safety of Australians
Agriculture and trade
Resources and the environment
Social services
Education and employment
Government
Tax and super

Projects are delivering benefits for Australians across 9 sectors

Across these sectors, digital projects deliver outcomes by leveraging technologies, with many also involving non-digital spending. Projects replacing legacy systems and boosting cyber security can spend 100% of their budgets on technology, while other projects that enable organisational transformation and service improvement often involve a significant non-digital component.

For the projects included in this report, on average about two-thirds of the total project budget relates directly to digital technologies with one-third going to non-digital spending.

Breakdown of projects by sector. For all the information contained in this diagram, see the image description below.

Chart header: 'Projects are delivering benefits for Australians across 9 sectors'.
The chart provides a breakdown of active projects by sector, with 9 sectors worth a total project budget of $12.9 billion.
The chart demonstrates that more than fifty percent of spending ($8.0 billion) is associated with health and aged care, the safety of Australians, and resources and the environment.
The chart further represents the breakdown of active projects by sector, according to their investment value, expressed as a percentage. Demonstrating that:
- $4.2 billion (33%) is invested in Resources and Environment
- $1.9 billion (15%) in Safety of Australians
- $1.9 billion (15%) in Health and Aged Care
- $1.2 billion (9%) in Government
- $1.1 billion (8%) in Agriculture and Trade
- $0.8 billion (6%) in Tax and Super
- $0.7 billion (5%) in Industry, Infrastructure and Business
- $0.6 billion (5%) in Social Services and
- $0.5 billion (4%) in Education and Employment.

Project budgets: $1M–$3B
Project duration: 1–35 Years
Projects range in total budget from less than $1 million to more than $3 billion, and in duration from one year to 35 years. What each of these projects has in common is that they are harnessing technology to deliver benefits for Australians.
Project budgets: 2/3 digital technologies
For the projects included in this report, on average about two-thirds of the total project budget relates directly to digital technologies with one-third going to non-digital spending.

Services Australia: Passkey technology strengthens myGov security
At a glance
Tier 3
$5.6 million investment (Digital $3.3 million)
Over 500,000 users
my.gov.au/passkeys
Summary
The Phishing Resistant Credentials in myGov Project has delivered passkey technology to prevent phishing-related attacks on myGov accounts.
Phishing attacks deceive individuals by posing as trusted organisations to obtain their login details. Recently, myGov has seen a significant rise in such impersonation scams.
In June 2024, Services Australia delivered a phishing- resistant sign in credential known as a ‘passkey’ to myGov. Individuals can now disable their myGov password and use a digital ID (Digital Identification) or passkey instead. This helps prevent scammers from accessing myGov accounts with stolen credentials or phishing scams.
Passkeys use the latest in cryptographic keypair technology and are simple to set up and use with a myGov account.
Using a passkey and disabling a password makes myGov accounts resistant to phishing attacks because the passkey only works with the website or app it is created on, which means it will not work on a phishing website.
Keys to success
To successfully deliver this project, Services Australia:
- conducted social market research to understand user, community and stakeholder attitudes towards security and sign in options, awareness of passkeys and potential drivers and barriers to adoption
- based the technical build on use and adoption of open, industry leading authentication standards
- implemented user centred design based on myGov user experience
- employed iterative testing, integrating testing with all myGov member services, using a 3-month private beta with hundreds of users, releasing via a soft launch in June 2024.
In the first week, more than 20,000 myGov users set up a passkey. By the end of December 2024, over 500,000 users had a passkey connected to their myGov account and over 200,000 had turned off their myGov password.
This is one of the first digital government services in the world to implement passkeys.
"It’s so simple and easy to use and I feel all of my myGov information is safe from hackers."
myGov user

Disclaimer
“Certain numbers in this report have been rounded to one decimal place. Due to rounding, some totals may not correspond with the sum of the separate figures.”

Major Digital Projects Report