Government Minister Says “My Bad” After Incorrectly Blaming Hackers For MyGov Crash
"I didn’t think I’d have to prepare for 100,000 concurrent users."
The minister who tried to blame hackers for causing the MyGov website to crash yesterday has offered an extremely halfhearted apology: “my bad”.
Yesterday Government Services Minister Stuart Robert incorrectly told media the MyGov website had been targeted by a DDoS attack, where hackers flood a website with traffic until it’s overwhelmed and shuts down.
In reality, it wasn’t hackers — the traffic came from tens of thousands of desperate Australians who suddenly found themselves without a job due to the coronavirus shutdown.
Minister for Government Services Stuart Robert lied today in the middle of a public health crisis to cover his own behind.
He's the one who should be queuing up at Centrelink.— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) March 23, 2020
This morning Robert — the man also responsible for the government’s chaotic robodebt scheme — told Alan Jones on 2GB radio “my bad” for being so woefully unprepared.
“I didn’t think I’d have to prepare for 100,000 concurrent users,” he admitted.
“My bad not realising the sheer scale of the decision on Sunday night by national leaders that literally saw hundreds and hundreds of thousands, maybe a million people, unemployed overnight.”
Sub-text:
“I probably should have waited before just coming out instinctively without a big fat ridiculous lie…..”
— 💧🔥 Carl Payne 🎹 (@CarlDPayne) March 24, 2020
It’s his responsibility to not jump guns or fabricate vital information.
Lives depend on people like him.Saying “my bad” and trivialising the issue is truly worrying.
— Belinda Noonan (@BelindaNoonan1) March 23, 2020
Who let the “Minister for Robo-debt” out in the first place? @stuartrobertmp
— Aaron Denis White (@AaronKinKin1) March 24, 2020
Robert said usually the website has about 6,000 concurrent users but they had prepared their servers for a spike of 55,000.
Instead, they got almost double that.
If I was as bad as my job as Stuart Robert is, I wouldn't have a job to be bad at
He should be lining up in the mess of a situation he's made outside Centrelink with the rest of the newly unemployed. Atleast he would be deserving of it
— 'Inimitable' Dowie James (@DowieJames) March 24, 2020
At a press conference yesterday Robert blamed the outage on a DDoS attack, but less than two hours later he was forced to admit there was no evidence of that.
“I probably should have waited for the investigation before jumping the gun,” he said.
This morning The Sydney Morning Herald reported that forecasters are bracing for a 15% unemployment rate as a result of the coronavirus pandemic — that would mean more than two million Australians would be out of work.
Last month Australia’s unemployment rate was 5.1%.
This is the line at Centrelink at Bondi Junction. Quite simply – if this basic function doesn’t work, if people can’t access money – it doesn’t matter how carefully targeted/crafted/generous the Government’s Safety net package is.
Stuart Robert – you have one job. Fix it. pic.twitter.com/v8c8zIQqGD
— Laura Jayes (@ljayes) March 23, 2020
Despite yesterday’s debacle, Robert is encouraging people to access the website instead of going to Centrelink in person.
Minister for Families and Social Services Anne Ruston said this morning the website has been upgraded to handle 150,000 users.
"Minister Stuart Robert conceded he had failed to appreciate the scale of demand that would be placed on Centrelink's website."
Stuart Robert: "My bad"
"Minister Anne Ruston urged people to go home and instead contact Centrelink by phone or online."
We're fucked. Good luck AU! pic.twitter.com/Nse8Oy0FKN
— Steve Thomas 🤯 (@steve_coding) March 23, 2020