"I see some self-appointed experts say A$1.1 billion (US$805.2 million) is not enough money, but the reason we appointed KPMG LLP is because we wanted to be sure the project had a very focused set of priorities," Hockey said today at this year's smartcard summit in Sydney.

"We want to avoid application creep and the numbers are cross verified by the Department of Finance, Treasury, and my own agency. We're confident $1.1 billion will be an appropriate sum of money for this infrastructure."

The new Access Card is set to wipe out some 17 cards and vouchers inn use for various government services, including the Medicare card, across the "Human Services family," and, as such, Hockey said it will be "easier to deal with logistically."

"I will be distributing a trillion dollars over the next 10 years and that provides an opportunity for fraud that is unacceptable to the government," he said. "KPMG says it will save A$3 billion over 10 years, but I think that's a significant under estimate."

Hockey also released some details about how the project is progressing, saying the department is now in a tender process for "lead advisers and project managers" which will be announced in July. There is also a worldwide search for a chief technology architect to do the detailed design of the card's rollout.