Why Patrick Gorman says public service tech barriers will fall ... eventually

Old government computer systems are here to stay - for now - and the full-throttle pace of tech evolution means the right replacements for some may not have been invented yet, Assistant Minister for the Public Service Patrick Gorman says.

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Assistant Minister for the Public Service Patrick Gorman says governments "hear the message" from public servants about legacy technology. Picture by Karleen Minney

Mr Gorman praised public servants' "enthusiasm" for new technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), but said agencies need to remain sensible about funding upgrades and avoid falling victim to "first iteration" technology in favour of long-term solutions.

"The first iteration of a technology that people might really want doesn't end up being the lasting technology that is used for very long at all," Mr Gorman told The Canberra Times.

"This year is effectively 20 years since Blackberries were rolled out in the public service. You can't get a Blackberry today. They've come and gone," he said.

Public servants cited technology used inside government agencies as a "great or very great" barrier to peak work performance 28 per cent of the time in the latest APS census - 35 per cent said it was no barrier.

Mr Gorman, who deputises Minister for the Public Service Katy Gallagher and is also assistant minister to the Prime Minister and the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, said the statistics spoke to improving tech-savvy within the service.

"The enthusiasm for using technology at work, I find really encouraging," Mr Gorman said, but the government "do hear the message" that public servants are struggling with tech barriers.

"I get why that is annoying to people, but I also understand that not every device on every workstation needs to have every type of software or needs to have every capability," he said.

Wholesale replacement of government legacy tech would be a $15 billion hit to the federal budget, Home Affairs officials have said, while a widely cited 2025 report penned by Microsoft and Mandala found 71 per cent of agencies use outdated IT accounting for 40 per cent of tech budgets.

"Some of the systems that public servants need to use are large secure systems that have had significant investment in them and it doesn't always make sense to be doing tech investment every single budget cycle for every single agency," he said.

Mr Gorman said the success of programs like the APS Digital Profession had also demonstrated "the ability to get a lot of knowledge sharing happening without large investments in platforms or soft infrastructure".

Just shy of 20,000 (more than one in 10) public servants have joined the Digital Profession - which connects government tech workers to help share skills and capabilities - since 2021, according to figures provided by Mr Gorman's office, or a 30 per cent membership increase since July 2025.

The Digital Profession's annual report is due in December.

State of the service

Mr Gorman said he was "encouraged" by the latest APS census results despite a sharp decline in satisfaction with wages, job security and the ability of the service to manage change as agencies struggle to reduce spending on external consultants and chase voluntary redundancies.

Public servants are expected to reject a three-year, 9 per cent pay rise offer put forward by the government on Tuesday.

"I like that public servants do, when we give them the opportunity to, tell us exactly what they think," he said.

"I'll get that again in the [2027 State of the Service] Road Show," said Mr Gorman. "And I do appreciate when people actually say this is what's working and this is what's not."

But he would not be drawn on future changes to the Strategic Commissioning Framework - which required agencies to set targets to reduce external contractor spending and in-house core work.

A recent report by the Australian National Audit Office found agencies were using "narrow" language in the Framework to claim savings from jobs returned to within the service while still spending more on external contractors.

Mr Gorman insisted the Framework was a success that had been "embedded into the core day-to-day business of the public service", which the government would "continue to improve it over time".

Senator Gallagher last month told this masthead the government was not done in its attempts to cut external agency spending, saying the public service had grown to a size where it could absorb work that would otherwise be outsourced.

"There's more to be done and we will do it," said Senator Gallagher.

The government spent $20 billion on its external workforce over the past financial year and more than $75 billion on employment and superannuation overall.

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