Machinery-of-government changes have wreaked havoc on the Commonwealth's lobbyists register, with staff forced to manually update personal details because of the technical problems.
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The public database is supposed to record the details of people and companies who lobby government on behalf of third-party clients.
But officials from the Attorney-General's department told Senate estimates the register has been besieged with technical issues since the agency took over its administration in the week before the May election.
Assistant secretary of institutional integrity Lucinda Atkinson said that when the back-end system switched over, it clashed with the Attorney-General's operating environment.
"There have been some cases where, for example, some of the data that was brought across from PM&C into our system has wrongly copied across, so we have had to manually update the data," she said.
"There have been some issues where the portal through which users enter their data has not been linking to the public register, or when my staff have been interacting with the data, for example, to approve and make changes to people's records, that has not been showing on the public register.
"As soon as we are made aware of those issues we have been making sure that we do what we can to manually fix those data issues. In the cases where we have not been able to do that in a really immediate fashion, my staff have been providing certification by email, which lobbyists can then take as proof that they have complied with their obligations."
There's also been cases where lobbyists have logged on after the update had been made, which caused a "break" in the data exchange, causing the register to again become inaccurate.
This meant the changeover had been "much more resource intensive" than was originally hoped, Ms Atkinson said.
"Probably we had up to four staff at any one time within my area working on that. But we also had resources from within our information division, so between 1.5 and 2 staff at any one from information division working on the technical side," she said.
Greens senator Larissa Waters said it sounded "like a total debacle".
"One wonders what information's been lost in the whole process of moving it over," Senator Waters said.
"I know it was a part of machinery-of-government changes but not only have a lot of resources been dedicated to mopping up an issue that's, as you say, still not quite fixed, but the lack of transparency of that information during that period is pretty unacceptable."
Sarah Chidgey, who is the deputy secretary of the Attorney General's department's integrity and international group, said: "We would absolutely agree that the situation hasn't been satisfactory."
A business analyst review was under way to determine whether the system could be fixed with a few minor changes, or whether a more substantial overhaul was required, she said.
"We're working to do that as fast as possible. As Ms Atkinson said, we're doing everything we can to provide assistance and fix issues manually in the meantime," Ms Chidgey said.
Meanwhile officials also revealed staff had worked up potential amendments to improve public sector whistleblower protections.
But Ms Chidgey said: "it's a matter for the Attorney and the government to make decisions".
Labor Senator Kim Carr pointed out the statutory independent review of the scheme was completed more than three years ago.
"It has obviously been considered for some time," Senator Carr said.
Ms Chidgey said the findings of the statutory review would be considered alongside the recommendations of the two press freedom inquiries underway.
Senator Carr said the lapse in time suggested the government did not take whistleblowing seriously.
"Consideration of press freedoms has come along fairly late, hasn't it?" Senator Carr said.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne assured Senator Carr the government did take whistleblowing seriously.
Attorney-General's Department secretary Chris Moraitis said the recent description of the public interest disclosure act as "technical, obtuse and intractable" by a federal court judge "resonated for quite a few people who have to administer the act".
