Senators have demanded to know why a new Parliament House website will be launched 12 months late after a $615,000 budget blowout.
A Senate estimates hearing has been told the new Parliament House website will be launched on Friday night and the project will have cost taxpayers $3.1 million.
Labor senator John Faulkner described the delay and extra cost as "pretty hopeless''.
"It's certainly something that has caused us concern and we've been disappointed with how long it has taken,'' parliamentary librarian Roxanne Missingham replied.
Ms Missingham said several issues were responsible for the delay, including additional consultation and security testing.
"The complexity of various aspects of the website led to delays and there were a number of issues in regression testing that we found and we also went through a reworking of aspects of the website as the three creators of information on the website reworked some of their business requirements,'' she said.
Senate President John Hogg said some of the extra costs had been caused by security testing that was required after the Parliament House computer network came under external "attack'' in December last year.
Meanwhile, parliamentary officials rejected allegations that Parliament House security cameras had been used to conduct surveillance on potential whistle-blowers entering or leaving senator Faulkner's office.
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