Every Government Scheme Ever | Utopia

Nat is asked to help out the Minister with a problem-plagued I.T. project. Meanwhile, a poor radio interview sees Tony forced to undertake media training.

Season 3 Episode 3: Nation Shapers

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Set inside the offices of the “Nation Building Authority”, a federal government organisation responsible for overseeing major infrastructure projects, Utopia explores that moment when bureaucracy and grand dreams collide.

Starring Rob Sitch, Celia Pacquola, Dave Lawson, Kitty Flanagan, Anthony 'Lehmo' Lehmann.

#Utopia #WorkingDogProductions

[workingdogproductions]

A new season of Utopia is coming Wednesday 7 June 8pm to ABC TV + iview! 💻

[davespanksalot]

My housemate is currently working on the pre implementation phase of new software, essentially myob for a federal government department. It’s only been a year and it still doesn’t work yet. He says he can’t watch this show because it’s not comedy, it’s a documentary.

[lizzie]

"How many more slides are there?"
"12...+8...and 2 after that."😂

[Parawingdelta]

I use to work for a city council who introduced a new payroll system around 2005. Some people ended up getting nothing on pay day; others (like labourers) were getting $5, 000 per week. For about six months, those getting nothing had to collect their pay in cash. Those who were overpaid denied all knowledge of the error and had to be convinced to hand the money back.

[spheremulticorp]

missed the part where they claim its a DDOS attack after it crashes hahahaha

[WorksOnMyComputer]

If you would like to become a web developer and have an interest in working in a government agency, please treat this clip as a career highlights reel.

[sarcasmo]

Thanks for the behind the scenes of government doco.

[CodeMeat]

Reminded me of that $9m+ COVIDSafe app
and still, I can't upload my files with that Centrelink "Express failed" App

[QoStoOds]

Never fails to make me laugh. Love this show.

[KJs]

For those who have worked in big business/govt, this is actually quite frustrating.

As so many say below, this is just true.

SOOO many examples.

The Navy had a leave/pay/personnel system. NPMS. It worked GREAT, because Navy leave is totally different to civilian company leave, and the system was actually made to do what Navy needed. It HAS to be, because the transition between training when you join (training leave, just get holidays every so often) and then normal "accrue as you go" leave means there is a period between where you have (or had) NO LEAVE, so have to "advance it" . Civvies can't do that, because you could advance leave, and then resign. Wheras Navy has a fixed term enlistment, so it worked PERFECTLY.

Then we have to go Tri service to "streamline". Pfft, that in itself costs BILLIONS for no gain, in fact, it STILL doesn't work properly, but that's a whole separate debacle.

Army don't have a computer leave/pay etc, so they look for one. Use NPMS?? Army says Then they find out that the "N" stands for "Navy" = Nah, no good.

They DEMAND a "new/from scratch system" that has "nothing to do with (Real "Tri-service" thinking it just doesn't work) .

Some computer company sells us a civilian leave/pay/personnel system (that they paste a "for military" label over the top of) that is totally useless, and does NOTHING that is any good to us. But the glossy brochure roll out sells it to Generals/Admirals/pollies = all good. It was SO OBVIOUS that this was just a re-labelled civvy system that was nothing like we wanted. Well, obvious to people who would use it, not to hierarchy. They LOVED the holograms on the video

When the sailors tell the Admirals the new system does NOTHING that we need it to, all told "just make it work." Personnel work EXTRA hours to do their best/work around after paying millions for new system which is USELESS.

Financially, it is a disaster. It costs about 3 times what was budgeted, then we were told to "stop worrying about it." There is actual federal investigation, because not only does it go beyond the amounts allowed, it steals from other buckets of money as well. Army are happy though, because they had nothing before, so "better than nothing."

But the personal cost is far worse. Sailors leave training, they have NO LEAVE for 12 months. They get posted away from home, they can't go home and see family until they accrue leave. They used to just advance it, now they CANNOT. We had suicides by 17/18 YO sailors because away from family for so long.

Say anything? Get told to "keep it quiet".

The old system was BETTER. New system DIDN'T WORK, and cost ZILLIONS. Sailors leave is STILL a shitfight. It broke finance dept laws = all hushed up.

The only reason they get away with it, is people just wouldn't believe how RIDICULOUS it is. And people NEVER LISTEN to anyone who is in/have been in defence. They ALWAYS have a "mate who reckons" who knows more about the military than military.

Then again, everyone does it. My bank. Old website perfect. They get a new one. DIDN'T WORK and they lost so many customers over it. Now (5 or so years on) it is STILL hard to use, but now half the stuff doesn't work. So cost millions to be far worse than it was. But they DO have one or two reviews that are "excited by the new site." Yeah, right. Obviously made up/contrived. I mean, who actually says THAT????



This show isn't comedy sadly.

It's an expose'.


Oh, and if you don't believe it - this link is the tip of the

[Lfiero]

We could do the same in Canada but people here are so inured to the incompetence the don't or won't see it.

[trudi]

Don't know whether to laugh or scream. 🥺

[slipoch]

So true, a tradie I know was purchasing some licenses from the gov the other day and they had changed the prices between when he selected the licenses and when he went back to add more ot his cart, interestingly his original additions to the cart were the old price, so I told him to hit f12 (opens dev tab on browser) and have a look at the cookies and that they would probably be encrypted and gave him some basic base64 decode websites....it wasn't even in base 64 but in plain English, it had stored the prices of the products in his cart and was not checking them on the site when he went back, so he added all that he needed to and changed the price in the cookie. Then the entire checkout process went through at the old price. So essentially, this mandatory licensing requirement that the government requires for some trades, you can just change the price in your browser and it will go the entire way through the payment process and assign them to you at whatever price you can put in your browser.

I also saw a tender application for website/web portal stuff the other day, a lot of the requirements were mutually exclusive or pointless (headless mixed with live site preview - so why do you need headless? secure but admin to have access to passwords) and they were using buzzwords that mean nothing like web 3.

[peterbuckley]

This is a very smart show with a terrific cast 😅

[tedsmith]

The classic story. If it doesn't work properly, change the name.

[usernameMOT]

I'm watching this show atm and comedy asspect aside, it is really painful just how accurately they portray the departments I used to work for.

[Media]

so good best show in australia tele by far and a true look at the muppets that run this once great country cant wait

[davidburchett]

I laugh all the way through every episode of Utopia……….then cry cos it’s very sadly true 😞. And people can argue that I’m being defeatist but after being involved in the implementing of different government projects, be they local or state, it’s hard to not walk away disillusioned by the money and time that gets wasted

[NoobTube]

I did a couple of months at QLD government as a consultant. My face when I realised government in first world is not so far off from government in second and third worlds. They just have more money to waste and slightly more advanced tech. The inertia, lethargy & bureaucracy was still in there. 😂 I’m not saying it’s an apples to apples comparison, but when it comes to being efficient & getting shit done, the same sort of hallmarks were present. I left consultancy after that and couldn’t be happier in a R&D environment in the private sector.

[spiesonmars]

So that's where my taxpayer's money has gone - a very expensive slideshow!!