The Herald urged people to fill in the census form fully and honestly. It noted the Australian Bureau of Statistics's assurances that its security systems were robust enough to keep our personal information safe. That appears not to have been so. Trust is broken.
The Australian Statistician David Kalisch said on morning radio that the ABS website had been subject to malicious attack which prompted him to shut it down at 7.45pm on Tuesday. That meant about 4 million households which were attempting in good faith to fulfil their civic duty by submitting their forms could not do so.
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Census failure: 'This was not a hack'
No census data has been lost, says Minister Michael McCormack, despite the ABS being forced to close its on-line census site.
The government is trying to spin the debacle positively. The Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has congratulated the ABS for its cautious approach, emphasising its website was not breached and no private information was compromised. The minister responsible Michael McCormack even insisted it should not be called a hack or attack, but rather an attempt to frustrate the collection of data. This is as thin as spin gets. Census 2016 is a multi-faceted shambles with far-reaching consequences, for the census, for the ABS, and for the Turnbull government.
According to cybersecurity experts, the attack on the system was of a type that is both simple and predictable, and it is surprising the ABS's systems were not resilient enough to deal with it.
It beggars belief that Malcolm Turnbull's government, which wants to be distinguished by its smarts around innovation, digital media and the new economy, can oversee an IT fail of such huge proportions, that by its very nature involves every single citizen. The new Turnbull administration has been cack-handed in managing this, one of its first, most important, and basic tasks of government.
Let's consider what has been lost. A great collective tradition lies in tatters. For more than a hundred years Australians have trusted the government statistical bureau with their personal information so governments can plan how to distribute funds most fairly and effectively, draw electoral boundaries fairly, understand how society is changing and where new or better policies are needed. The ABS has been a world leader, providing advice to other governments about how to conduct censuses.
We don't know how the households who could not lodge on the night, and now have until September 23 to do so, will respond. With justified cause for concern about the security of ABS data, many may by now be wary of providing detailed, accurate personal information or participating at all. Now that many people will be filling it out retrospectively, there is a question about veracity. It can no longer be an accurate snapshot of Australia on the given night
The ABS, like all government agencies, has been under pressure to reduce costs and find ways of increasing its income. It has been run down, and required to do more with less. The government has shown little concern. The ABS has had three ministers in the last 12 months and the latest, McCormack, took on the responsibility just three weeks ago.
![Assistant Treasurer Michael McCormack and the ABS chief statistician David Kalisch explain the census outage at ...](/web/20160812073948im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/p/4/5/x/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gqp00c.png/1470892178018.jpg)
After Brian Pink retired at the start of 2014, then-treasurer Joe Hockey and former prime minister Tony Abbott didn't bother replacing him for nearly a year. The ABS sought to save costs by cutting corners, for example, with its crucial monthly employment survey. But the price turned out to be high when the figures jumped around so much the survey's credibility was dented.
In similar vein, it was proposed to save $200 million by skipping this year's census altogether and shifting to 10 year intervals instead of five. As Fairfax Media's Peter Martin has reported, when that plan was dropped because it was unlikely to get through the Senate, the bureau decided on the controversial course of keeping names and addresses supplied for the census so they could be linked - encrypted, of course - with other data to provide richer information. And for the first time most people would have to lodge census forms online, to save the bureau the cost of delivering or posting them.
The ABS and government ministers insisted everything would be alright on the night. But planning and explanation of these changes has proven woefully inadequate.
The census failure suggests a troubling level of incompetence and inattention to detail. It does not inspire confidence. The public's trust is hard won and easily squandered. Mr Turnbull and his government are on notice.