CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

As was expected, the MyGov website has crashed as Australians urgently try to file their tax returns on the first day of the government’s tax bonus payouts.

The portal, which millions of Australians use for Centrelink and tax purpose, returned an error message that was reminiscent of both the 2016 Census and the Optus coverage of the soccer world cup.

The ATO confirmed the news in a Tweet saying “some of our services are currently unavailable” with government experts putting the crash down to the fact that everyone wanted to use the website at the one time, so that they could file a tax return and not get in trouble with the taxman.

The MyGov meltdown is now part of a greater debate that has been triggered by the ongoing complaints surrounding the National Broadband Network – and the Government’s lack of interest in efficient internet in general.

“What we were hoping is that the NBN is so shit that not everyone could use the internet at once” said Communications Minister Paul Fletcher MP, who was very disappointed to be moved off the back bench after Morrison’s 2019 election win.

“But it turns out its just the website that couldn’t handle it. Don’t blame me. Blame the ATO. This is not an NBN issues”

“The NBN is doing fine”

“Some are criticising our 500 billion dollar investment in a copper wire NBN, but really you should be criticising yourselves, because when we built this thing we didn’t expect everyone to be using Netflix eighteen months later”