Victoria’s Innovation Minister says the state’s long history of IT bungles should be ignored.

Innovation Minister Philip Dalidakis says “the Victorian government is no doubt a little bit shy when it comes to IT projects”.

“We have suffered under previous governments - whether they’re Liberal or Labor - with ICT procurement, cost overruns, and not getting it right,” he told a meeting of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) in Melbourne on Thursday.

The state has had a rough run since 2011 Ombudsman’s report  detailing $1.4 billion worth of IT project overruns.

Mr Dalidakis says the state government is not actually that bad.

“We are not alone,” he said.

“From my own experience in the private sector I know that they are every bit as bad at IT procurement as the government has been.

“We need to double-down on our IT investment. We need to continually look at moving to the cloud as fast as we can.

“We need to invest in cyber security across all of our agencies. We need to make sure our systems are robust and deliver what we need,” the minister said.

Mr Dalidakis says the state’s IT management was looking forward to better days.

“Don’t be scornful of our past but encourage us for our future,” he said.

“Because if we get this right there is a lot to achieve - whether it is health records, whether it is data you need to get from point a to point b, whether it is information about schools in your areas and class sizes in real time.”