No Major release - Major announcement at EQL!

On Wednesday you would have received the update from Energy Queensland CEO, Rod Duke about the problems with Major Release and the need to revise the plan regarding the DEBBs project. Effectively, this means there will be no Major Release in June 2023 as planned, however projects such as the Unified Distribution Management System (‘UDMS’), Payroll and Unified Graphical Information System (‘UGIS’) will continue to be brought back in house to EQL.

Unfortunately, its one of those ‘we told you so’ moments where our union and others in the Single Bargaining Unit (‘SBU’) have been pointing out problems with Asset Works Management (‘AWM’) and the DEBBs project, more generally for the last couple of years.

Many of the problems which were raised fell on deaf ears and our concerns about the wastefulness of the Project and contractors involved has ultimately proven to be justified.

On Tuesday, we received a briefing from the relevant EGMs, and we again raised our key concerns about fiscal responsibility, accountability and that we were getting a lot of spin from EQL after their Board meeting on Monday.

The agreement at Tuesday’s meeting was that the SBU would give EQL until Friday to get their house in order, and to enable them to tell us how they intend to come up with a workable revised plan in the next 8 to 10 weeks; how they intend to include the Unions, Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and the end users in this phase to ensure these projects deliver for EQL. 

More importantly for our members, this will mean EQL will need to give us sufficient detail regarding the plan and how they intend to manage this transition, while not completely throwing out all the good work many of our members have produced over the last few years. We want to see that EQL delivers on the themes of accountability, transparency and come up with something viable going forward.

We will see if EQL delivers at today’s meeting. Members can be sure we will be standing with our colleagues in the SBU and that we will be by the side of any of our members affected by this announcement!