Page 1831 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 22 June 2021
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demand would be stronger with the full rollout, given the redesign of the scheme, so we ensured that we increased the server capacity. In line with the contingency prepared in advance of the full rollout, further server capacity was implemented on Tuesday, 8 June, the day before ChooseCBR went live, in response to an increase in traffic with consumers logging on in preparation.
I have seen commentary from some members that we should have learned from the trial. We did; that is why those changes were made. No other technical issues were experienced or evident during the trial that we could have learned from. What occurred during the full rollout was entirely distinct. However, before the full rollout, more reasonable testing was carried out on the site. Tests included a suite of functional testing, including account registration, voucher redemption and feedback submission.
The program rolled out on 9 June. It had been difficult to model what we expected the voucher spending to be. With a doubling of the voucher amounts and discounts, it was reasonable to consider that a doubling of amounts claimed a day to $60,000 might be possible, which would have meant the funding would last for around one month. However, we had also done more marketing and more businesses were participating. Even considering this, the take-up we saw on Wednesday morning was well beyond our expectations, both in terms of voucher redemptions and the number of new customers signing up.
As members are aware, the website began experiencing intermittent technical issues on 9 June. There were different symptoms experienced after each fix was being applied to resolve a previous issue that appeared. Businesses were still able to process vouchers during this time. I am aware of commentary and media reports that the website was ‘down for the majority of the time’, but because the issues were being experienced intermittently, vouchers were still able to be processed on and off.
At the time we took the website offline $389,950 in vouchers had been redeemed across 553 businesses. However, because the issues were intermittent, we were aware that this was an increasingly frustrating experience for businesses and customers alike.
This was particularly so on Thursday when the website was working very well for customers, but not working for businesses, meaning that the onus was increasingly on businesses to explain that they were not able to process a voucher. This was not fair on business owners nor their staff. This experience was deeply regrettable. It fell short of the expectations we had set, and it undermined the confidence in the system. I apologise unreservedly to the business and broader Canberra community that this was their experience.
We will review how this situation came to occur. However, our immediate priority was to fix the issues and to restore confidence in the system. When the intermittent issues were occurring, the developer team actively sought to apply fixes. However, as I noted, when a fix was applied a new symptom would emerge. This, together, with our very key concern on the impacts this frustration was having on businesses and customers alike, meant it became apparent that we needed time to take the system offline and determine what was occurring. We initially made the decision on
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