Committee says toxic culture harmed Acacia health IT project
Australia’s Northern Territory Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee said a “toxic” workplace culture in the Department of Corporate and Digital Development negatively affected the cost and delivery of the $335 million Acacia health IT project. The findings of the nearly 200-page report were reported by ABC News Australia.
Acacia was developed to replace outdated technology and consolidate several NT Health patient record systems. The project, which began 11 years ago, was only partially implemented despite several budget overruns. In 2024, the system was removed from the emergency department at Royal Darwin Hospital because staff considered it a threat to patient safety.
Staff turnover and unresolved problems
The committee found that the culture within Acacia harmed employees. Witnesses and submission authors described working on the system as unpleasant, stressful, demanding and often thankless. According to the report, the toxic atmosphere caused high staff turnover, resulting in the project losing accumulated knowledge and spending significant resources on recruitment and training.
The committee also heard evidence that senior management was not prepared to respond constructively to staff concerns. As a result, serious problems remained unresolved, while the toxic atmosphere and fear of retaliation discouraged people from reporting issues, harming the quality of the program’s implementation.
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Dependence on contractors
About 80% of Acacia workers were contractors, which the committee described as an extremely unusual level of reliance on contract staff compared with the rest of the Northern Territory public sector. As stated in the report, contractors’ daily rates allowed them to work long hours without additional costs to the program, while the instability of contracts could make threats of retaliation easier through the possibility of quickly terminating a contract.
The report also mentions the death by suicide of senior contractor Shaun Joyce, who in 2025 worked as Acacia’s director of solution implementation. The committee considered this death indicative of the experience of project workers. His sister, Kara Joyce, who also worked on Acacia, told the committee that systemic problems in the management of the program led to her brother’s death.
The committee noted that the Department of Corporate and Digital Development and NT Health sometimes provided contradictory answers and, in the committee’s view, did not provide some information. Committee chair Clinton Howe said Acacia was not necessarily the most appropriate path for the Northern Territory. The committee made 11 recommendations, including strict cost controls and a review of the contractor onboarding procedure so they are aware of their occupational health and safety rights.
