The federal government has effectively shelved further progress on the access card project until after the election and has confirmed that the original project timetable no longer applies.The minister for human services, Chris Ellison, told the Smart Cards Summit in Sydney yesterday that the enabling legislation would be released as a draft exposure bill for public consultation within the next two parliamentary sitting weeks but would not commit to a timetable for introducing the bill to parliament."It could be at any stage this year or next year," Ellison told assembled media outside the conference."People have asked for more consultation. We are giving them that."Ellison confirmed that the registration process for the card would be affected by the new commitment to consultation.The access card is intended to replace 16 identity or eligibility cards issued by Australian government agencies, primarily the Medicare card (the only government card issued to about six million people). In theory the access card would replace existing cards in a three year project from 2008 to 2010."Obviously there will be some delay with that but not inordinate," said Ellison. "Registration is an aspect that we are continuing to consult on."Registration requires the co-operation of the Labor controlled states and territories to ensure digital confirmation of state issued identity documents such as birth certificates.The minister confirmed that no shortlist for tenders one or two had been created but refused to speculate on when the winning tenderers might be announced or when tenders three and four might be opened.The Financial Review had reported in late April that the Department of Human Services shortlisted IBM and Thales as systems integrator of the access card. The newspaper also reported at the time that DHS selected these two from a field that also included CSC, Accenture and Unisys.The spokeswoman for DHS yesterday said the AFR's report was "made up".