No individuals have faced consequences for the absolutely disastrous waste of more than $77 million on the failed project to upgrade the ACT government's human resources and payroll computer system.
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No public servant has been disciplined or faced internal consequences. No minister has been forced to resign.
Special Minister of State Chris Steel, who inherited responsibility for the dud project, apologised last year to the people of Canberra for the waste of money. Speaking in the Legislative Assembly, he sought to assure the community lessons had been learned. It would not, he indicated, happen again.
Last week, Mr Steel defended the way the fallout of the project had been managed.
The government preferred not to take a "slash and burn approach" by going after individuals.
"Our inclination at all stages has been to build capability within the ACT public service when it comes to managing complex ICT projects, not to take a slash and burn approach, of going after individuals," Mr Steel told a Legislative Assembly inquiry on Thursday.
"That would undermine the capacity of the public service.
"We know that we need to build capability in this area ... our approach has always been to build capability."
There is no doubt the ACT public service does need greater capability to manage large and complex computer system upgrades.
No one would say those projects are easy. IT system upgrades can be devilishly complicated, especially when the new systems need to meet the rigorous requirements of public administration. A computer error for the government can have very costly real-world ramifications.
In the payroll area, a computer system that is not up to the task would quickly be at risk of paying people incorrectly. The government must be a model employer. Their pay systems simply must work. There is no room for error.
Broadly, Mr Steel's position public servants shouldn't be sacked as an example, or simply to meet the desire of the public and indeed the opposition to have a head roll, is commendable.
But the result is the public is left with little assurance the people who got it wrong to the tune of $77.7 million have genuinely learnt their lesson and will not be in a position to make the same mistakes.
The Auditor-General was scathing of the government's handling of the HRIMS project, particularly of the fact no one was ultimately responsible.
If no one was responsible, the government seems to be saying, no one can be held accountable.
Institutions, like the public service, can be opaque beasts. There are times, like the failed HRIMS project, where no one is quite sure who is genuinely responsible for what.
Mr Steel's first task is to repair this culture that allowed such a monumental waste of public money.
And then Mr Steel's second task is to explain to the public - in clear, plain English - just how the culture will change.
Mr Steel made the right call in halting the project and has faced the difficult political consequences of being the public face of a multi-million dollar failure that was not of his own making.
But the public ought to reserve its judgement of Mr Steel's actions until they can be convinced the ACT's public service has righted its course under his watch.
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