RECKONER. I track every dollar wasted by Australian governments.

In the spotlight

Updated weekly · 3 findings

The three that matter most right now.

Reckoner surfaces the findings with the highest combination of dollar impact, recency, controversy, and public interest. Rotates every Monday.

Up to $6 billion stolen from disabled Australians every year — and the agency admits it had 'no real control' until 2024

The NDIS paid $46.3 billion in 2024-25. The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission estimates up to 20% is misused — $6 to $9 billion annually. ANAO confirm...

National Disability Insurance Agency / Services Australia

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$5 billion in wrong pension payments — 3 years, every quarter a miss

Services Australia made $5 billion in incorrect age pension payments over 3 years to June 2024 — $3.67B overpaid, $1.33B underpaid. The agency missed its own 80...

Services Australia

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$2.7 billion gap: Australia's navy ships suffering 'catastrophic failures'

HMAS Canberra and HMAS Adelaide — Australia's two largest and most expensive warships — suffered complete power failures on humanitarian missions. ANAO found su...

Department of Defence (Royal Australian Navy)

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Under investigation

Queued and waiting to be spotlighted.

85 findings in the pipeline — next up when a spotlight slot opens. Every permalink stays live.

Suburban Rail Loop: $34.5B to $216B — The Costliest Infrastructure Promise in Australian History

Major Transport Infrastructure Authority

DVA military compensation liability surged $59.7B in a single year — up 65%

Department of Veterans' Affairs

NBN Co $27.5B cost blowout — 93% over original $29.5B estimate

11 of 14 Home Affairs SES officers skipped conflict of interest declarations on $23.8B contract portfolio

Department of Home Affairs

Victorian Big Build: West Gate Tunnel + Metro Tunnel + North East Link — $19B in Combined Overruns

Major Transport Infrastructure Authority

Cross River Rail: $13.6 Billion Blowout — 253% Over Budget

Cross River Rail Delivery Authority / Department of Transport and Main Roads

Sydney Metro City & Southwest: $9 Billion Blowout

Sydney Metro / Transport for NSW

BAE Systems Donated $288K to Labor and Liberal — Landed $8.37B in Defence Contracts, Including a $1.89B Direct-Source Frigate Deal Referred to the Anti-Corruption Commission

Department of Defence

$7.8 billion of your taxes paid to consultants who left nothing behind

Australian Public Service Commission

Serco Donated $115K to Labor and Liberal — Collected $7.13B Running Immigration Detention for 15 Years, Amid Allegations of Violence, Neglect, and Self-Harm

Department of Home Affairs

Brisbane 2032 Olympics: Total Budget Unconfirmed — QAO Warned of Blowout Risk

Brisbane 2032 Organising Committee / Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority

NSW Education: $6.8 Billion in Restatements and Delegation Breaches

NSW Department of Education / TAFE NSW

Australia's biggest defence projects blew out by $5.5 billion — just from exchange rate movements

Department of Defence

NSW State Deficit: $5.1 Billion Operating Loss, $165B in Debt

Australia spends $5 billion a year on Big Four consultants — and the government rejected every major reform to fix conflicts of interest

Multiple (whole-of-government)

Boeing Donated $335K to Labor and Liberal — Collected $4.43B in Defence Contracts, Every Single One Through Direct Sourcing or Limited Tender

Department of Defence

Brisbane 2032 Victoria Park Stadium: $3.785 Billion Olympics Venue

Queensland Government / Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority

Sydney Metro Northwest Cost Blowout: $3.5B Over Budget

Transport for NSW

$3.3 billion in dodgy NDIS claims slipped through because nobody was watching

National Disability Insurance Agency

Logan & Gold Coast Faster Rail: $3.1 Billion Blowout

Department of Transport and Main Roads

Queensland Grants: $3.1 Billion With Weak Controls, 31% of Fixes Still Undone

All Queensland Departments / Queensland Reconstruction Authority

CIMIC Donated $540K to Labor, Liberal and Nationals — Collected $3.1B in Government Construction, 41% Without Open Tender

Department of Defence / Infrastructure Australia

NBN Co went 3 years without reporting to shareholders — collected $2.4B in equity during blackout

Queensland Train Manufacturing Program: $2.4 Billion Blowout Hidden From Media

Department of Transport and Main Roads

Western Sydney Airport Rail: $2.2 Billion Dispute, Delayed to 2027

Sydney Metro / Transport for NSW

Thales Australia Donated $195K to Labor and Liberal — Landed $2.2B in Defence Contracts Through Restricted Tender

Department of Defence

$2.1 billion in government contracts handed out without competition — no bids, no questions

Department of Finance

$2 billion in health grants handed out as 'captain's picks' — no applications, no merit, just ministerial discretion

Department of Health and Aged Care

DEWR's $1.9B Workforce Australia — 40% of placements last under 13 weeks, no outcome baseline

Department of Employment and Workplace Relations

Defence blew $1.8 billion over budget on IT projects — and they still don't work properly

Department of Defence

WestConnex Motorway: $5.3B Government Subsidy for a Tollway Nobody Owns Anymore

NSW Department of Transport

$1.5 billion in medication claims stuck unprocessed — while pharmacists wait and patients are delayed

Services Australia / Department of Health and Aged Care

Queensland Councils: $1.34 Billion in "Found Assets" — Roads That Didn't Exist on Paper

All 77 Queensland Councils

Ministers overruled their own experts to hand $1.2 billion to whoever they wanted

Department of Infrastructure

A $1.2 billion no-bid munitions deal — and the defence official who handed it out was accepting champagne from the winner

Department of Defence (Guided Weapons & Explosive Ordnance)

DTA: all 4 sampled procurements had wrong AusTender data; $1B IBM arrangement under AFP fraud investigation

Digital Transformation Agency

Sydney CBD & South East Light Rail: $1 Billion Blowout

Transport for NSW

Paladin Donated $70K to Labor and Liberal — A Company Registered to a Beach Shack Collected $948M in Sole-Source Manus Island Contracts Without Ever Facing Competition

Department of Home Affairs

The aged care regulator spent $890 million and can't show it made a single nursing home safer

Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission

PwC Donated $270K to Labor and Liberal — Then Bagged $700M in Advisory Contracts, Including Confidential Tax Reform Work

Department of Finance / Treasury / Multiple Agencies

Deloitte Donated $270K to Labor and Liberal — Bagged $683M in Consulting Contracts Across 4 Agencies, Every One Through Direct Sourcing or Limited Tender

Multiple agencies

$550M remote Indigenous housing program delivered only 19% of promised homes

National Indigenous Australians Agency

$550 million spent renovating the War Memorial — without ministers even being told about the contracts

Australian War Memorial

AGD delayed child sexual abuse survivor services for 5 years after Royal Commission

Attorney-General's Department

NSW Social Housing: 33-Day Fill Times, 9,280 Applications Backlogged

Homes NSW / Department of Communities and Justice

Victorian DHHS Pandemic Consulting: $1.1B to Big Four Firms During COVID — No Skills Transfer

Department of Health

Service NSW Digital Transformation Outsourcing: $2.1B in Untendered IT Contracts

NSW Department of Education ICT: $890M in Contracts With No Measurable Outcomes

NSW Department of Education

VicForests Wound Down With $340M in Taxpayer Losses — Ended Harvesting While Building Timber Mill

Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action

NSW Regional Roads Fund: $334M Allocated Without Business Cases

Transport for NSW

Service Victoria ICT Outsourcing: $780M in Untendered Contracts, MyVictorian App Built Three Times

Service Victoria

NSW Local Government: 1,131 Audit Findings Across 128 Councils, 40% Repeats

Local Government Sector (128 NSW councils)

NSW Health Consultancy Spend: $780M in Five Years — 38% Through Single-Vendor Panels

NSW Ministry of Health

$719M in community grants flowed to coalition marginal seats at more than double the rate of safe seats

Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications

ASIC "comprehensively failed" on ASX CHESS blockchain project — $250M written off under its watch

Queensland Councils: $241 Million in Asset Accounting Errors Across 17 Councils

17 of 77 Queensland Councils

NSW Police Technology Program: $155M Spent, One System Replaced

NSW Police Force

ATO CIO failed to declare Accenture conflict of interest; $136M contract awarded

Australian Taxation Office

$129.6 million in political donations with zero paper trail — that's 31% of everything the major parties raised

Australian Electoral Commission / Political Parties

QLD Education & Energy Departments: $127 Million in Contract Overruns From 20-Year-Old Framework

Department of Education / Department of Energy and Public Works

NSW Visiting Medical Officers: Weak Payment Controls Across $1B+ Annual Spend

NSW Health / Local Health Districts

Three major charities quietly took 57% of a $402M fund meant for small Indigenous community organisations

Department of Social Services

Services Australia's IT modernisation with Accenture blew $75 million over budget

Services Australia

ATO IT consultant cost blowout: $19M contracted ballooned to $88M

Australian Taxation Office

Racing for the Regions: $61.8M in Grants With Outdated Timelines and Zero Oversight

Department of Creative Industries, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport

State Penalties Enforcement Registry: $52 Million ICT System Never Implemented

Department of Justice

DFAT broke procurement rules — again — after ANAO caught them doing the same thing in a previous audit

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australian Passport Office)

NSW Waste Levy: Grants Without Strategy, Recycling Targets Missed

Queensland Health: $31 Million Per Year in Payroll Overpayments

Queensland Health / Department of Health

AEC handed Accenture $30M — no competition, no tender, for the system that regulates political donations

Australian Electoral Commission

The Australian National University got $175M from a research grants program that chose recipients without competitive bids

Department of Education, Skills and Employment

Home Affairs' IT contractor bill blew up 135% — $18 million became $42 million, no rebid

Department of Home Affairs

PricewaterhouseCoopers charged Defence $54 million for HR consulting — $22 million more than agreed, no rebid

Department of Defence

The Bureau of Meteorology's AWS migration cost $22 million more than planned — and nobody shopped around

Bureau of Meteorology

NIAA handed $16.3M sole-source contracts to PwC Indigenous arm while PwC under investigation

National Indigenous Australians Agency

Your submarine billions funded McKinsey — without a single competing bid

Australian Submarine Agency

Deloitte built a public service analytics tool for $12.7 million — three times the budget, zero competition

Australian Public Service Commission

Gabba Stadium: $6.4 Million Spent on Plans That Were Scrapped

Queensland Department of Sport, Racing and Olympic and Paralympic Games / Stadiums Queensland

Mining companies gave $6M to politicians — then lobbied against climate policy. The donations worked.

Minerals Council of Australia / Coal Australia → Liberal Party / LNP

Ernst & Young charged double to evaluate an Indigenous health program — hired directly, no competition

Department of Health and Aged Care

Queensland Health: One Third of Facilities Need Replacement Within 10 Years

Queensland Health / 16 Hospital and Health Services

48 of 77 Queensland Councils at Financial Risk — Local Government Crisis

All 77 Queensland Councils

Energy Queensland Digital Transformation: Six-Year Delay and Counting

Energy Queensland (state-owned corporation)

Queensland Social Housing: Wait List Up 78% in Four Years, System "Not Fit for Purpose"

Department of Communities, Housing and Digital Economy

Brisbane South State Secondary College: Parts Shelved Due to Budget Mismanagement

Department of Education

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