The 2006-07 Federal Budget as handed down on Tuesday will see A$1.1 billion directly committed to introducing an access card or national smart-card system aside from the A$282 million package to reduce social security fraud.

This package is slated to build on Australia's fraud and compliance framework currently in place and deliver savings of A$548 million over five years.

The access cards will be phased in from 2008, replacing 17 different health and social services cards and will hold limited personal information such as name and signature while a microchip will store a digital image of the card holder as well as their address, date of birth and details of family.

Human Services Minister Joe Hockey confirmed that individual government agencies would not have access to information stored by others under the smart-card scheme; however, this week the privacy debate has been sidelined by the resignation of James Kelaher, former head of the smart card technology taskforce.

Kelaher quit the project last week saying he disagrees with the rushed way in which such a sensitive project was being approached. However, Hockey said Kelaher resigned after being turned down following his offer to head the taskforce for an additional six months. Kelaher has not returned any correspondence by Computerworld magazine to confirm the issues surrounding his resignation.