Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of Senator Ketter, the Chair of the Economics References Committee, I present the report of the Economics References Committee on the 2016 census together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I would like to congratulate my colleague Senator Ketter and the other members of the Economics References Committee on their excellent report on the 2016 Census of Population and Housing. The census is a very important process for Australia. It creates a snapshot of our nation and its people, helps us to observe population and demographic trends and is a very important public policy tool. Given its importance, it is also really important that we get the census right. The Australian public must have trust in the census process to be encouraged to participate and to be assured that the data is accurate and reliable. While this report is incisive, even a casual observer can see that this year's census was the worst in Australia's history.

Millions of people across Australia logged onto their computers on census night, 9 August, anticipating the great family tradition of filling in their census together, only to be faced with messages on their screens such as 'This page can't be displayed,' or 'This site can't be reached.' Social media then lit up with the outrage of users who could not access the online census or eCensus site. It was later revealed that the ABS had made a decision to shut down the site due to a distributed denial of service attack. I think there were four attacks, actually.

Mr Turnbull's special adviser on cybersecurity, Mr Alastair MacGibbon, told a Senate estimates that the denial-of-service attack should not have brought down the census website. He said that the attacks were small and predictable, sending around three gigabytes per second of data when it is not uncommon to see attacks of 100 gigabytes per second or even 1,000 gigabytes per second. The Senate economics committee agreed. In the report they state:

It goes without saying that the eCensus website should have had the capacity to withstand what was a relatively minor attack.

The report goes on to say:

…there appears to have been significant and obvious oversights in the preparation of the eCensus.

The committee's report addresses issues such as the preparedness of the ABS's subcontractor IBM for denial-of-service attacks and the decision not to hold an open tender process for the contract. Evidence was also given by IBM that the ABS was considering not proceeding with the e-census, and, indeed, decreasing the frequency of the census to once every 10 years. Their final decision to proceed with the 2016 e-census was, according to IBM's evidence, reported to them as late as May 2015. To quote the committee's report:

The confirmation that the census would proceed, the delayed development of an eCensus solution, the use of a limited tender and the erosion of internal capacity to adequately oversee the development of the eCensus are all serious concerns that may have contributed to the events of 9 August 2016.

But the ultimate blame, obviously, rests with the government. You cannot discount the impact of budget cuts to the ABS, the long-running vacancy in the position of the Australian Statistician, the government's hands-off approach to the project and the revolving door of ministers responsible for the census—matters that are also addressed by this report, with appropriate recommendations.

The Australian Statistician acknowledged during the last round of budget estimates that the ABS has to date incurred additional costs of around $20 million and anticipates spending another $10 million. The cost to taxpayers of this bungle is a staggering $30 million. There is a possibility that some of that money may be able to be recovered, and I certainly hope that is the case. Australian taxpayers are rightly angry about their money being wasted in this way, but the millions of Australians who attempted to complete their census online on 9 August are also angry about the time wasted in their repeated futile attempts to access the site. They are also angry because the government continued to encourage Australians to complete the census online, even after the site had crashed, wasting many more millions of hours. One indication of what a monumental disaster this census has been is the undercount rate, or the percentage of households missing from the census at the end of the reporting period. Since 1971 the average undercount rate was 1.9 per cent, with the highest reported rate of 2.7 per cent occurring in 1976 and 2006, but the undercount rate for this year's census was a massive five per cent. How is this going to impact the integrity of the data generated by this year's census—data which is so important for public policy decisions? How many extra hours are census field officers going to have wasted listing the homes of people who could not complete the census online on census night?

At same time as this government has bungled Australia's census, Canada has recently held a census conducted primarily online, with the response rate of 98.4 per cent—their highest ever. Is it any surprise that Australia's census disaster occurred, given the way the Abbott-Turnbull government has treated the ABS? The government left the position of Australia's Statistician unfilled for nearly a year, and they appointed four ministers in the space of three years, all of whom ignored the census. On top of this, their savage cuts to the ABS have led to the recent announcement that the agency will need to cut 150 jobs. These cuts and job losses will have a huge impact on the scope and quality of the data that they are able to collect. The census appears to have become the largest victim to this government's ideological obsession with reducing the size of the Public Service. It is a cruel twist that the very public servants who worked so hard to save this government's census will be paying with their jobs.

Those opposite would do well to pay attention to the recommendations in this report to avoid a repeat of the debacle that was Australia's worst census ever. Among the recommendations in the report are:

…that the Australian Government commit the necessary funding for the 2021 census in the 2017–18 Budget.

…that the ABS conduct open tendering processes for future census solutions requiring the participation of the private sector.

… … …

… that the Department of Finance review its ICT Investment Approval Process to ensure that projects such as the 2016 Census are covered by the cabinet two-pass process.

…that the Australian Government provide portfolio stability for the ABS.

… responsible ministers seek six-monthly briefings on the progress of census preparations. These briefings should cover issues including, but not limited to, cyber security, system redundancy, procurement processes and the capacity of the ABS to manage risks associated with the census.

Given the government's attitude to the ABS and the census, this was a disaster waiting to happen. While Mr Turnbull seems to want to blame everyone but himself for this debacle, can we be in any doubt who would be taking the credit had the census been an outstanding success? If everything had run smoothly, I am sure Mr Turnbull would be crowing about its success in response to a series of suitably worded Dorothy Dixers in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. As the saying goes, success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.

But in the Westminster system the buck always stops with the minister. To quote from the report:

While many parties have not lived up to their responsibilities in delivering the 2016 census, the primary responsibility lies with the government.

The Prime Minister and his Minister for Small Business must take responsibility for the government's census stuff-up. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted.

Chris Ketter (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak in relation to the Senate Economics References Committee's report into the 2016 census. The events of the night of 9 August were very, very concerning. It was concerning that millions of Australians had their time wasted. The shutdown of the website raised fears over the security of the data that was provided. And, of course, the public was left confused when statements were given by the ABS and the government on 9 August which were not consistent. It is appropriate that the committee investigated what occurred and recommended actions that would prevent this issue from occurring again.

I will quote from one paragraph of the report that emphasises the committee's view that the decisions taken in the years and months leading up to 9 August put the 2016 census at risk:

A narrow focus on the events of August risks treating the symptoms and ignoring the disease. Questions regarding the validity of the ABS' actions should be focused on the years and months before the 2016 census when the decisions were made that would manifest themselves on 9 August 2016. The confirmation that the census would proceed, the delayed development of an eCensus solution, the use of a limited tender and the erosion of internal capacity to adequately oversee the development of the eCensus are all serious concerns that may contributed to the events of 9 August 2016.

The issue that the committee identified through the inquiry and through the estimates process included the following. There were four ministers with responsibility for the portfolio from September 2013. That is four ministers over the course of under three years. The Australian Statistician vacancy was left open for almost a year during 2014 when major contractual decisions were being made. Planning for the census was disrupted when the government was considering a move to the 10-yearly census. There must have been confusion within the Public Service in relation to that. A decision was taken in 2014 to use the limited tender process whereby IBM was the only company allowed to tender for the eCensus. IBM had already developed key IT infrastructure for the ABS and it was felt by them that it would be very difficult to consider working with another contractor. We noted that that was also the view of other potential bidders for the work for the census.

Also:

The ABS did not independently test the DDoS protections that IBM was contracted to put in place, as it considered that it had received reasonable assurances from IBM.

That was part of the ABS submission. The relatively small DDoS attacks should have been easily thwarted, and we heard from experts in the industry who explained that these types of attacks are commonplace and should have been identified as being a potential threat, and adequate measures should have been taken to thwart them.

The public consultation on the decision to retain name information for longer for the purpose of data linkage was for a period of three weeks, and the ABS received three submissions in response. The cost of the census, as a result of these failures, blew out by $30 million and Treasury, as far as we know at this point in time, is in commercial negotiations with IBM over the damages and perhaps recompense for Australian taxpayers for the failure of the e-census.

The committee has made a number of recommendations to strengthen the processes of census preparation to ensure that these events are not repeated again. I want to emphasise a few things when reflecting on the inquiry. The report notes that the committee heard much evidence to the effect that the ABS is underfunded to meet its objectives and that the current levels of funding place at risk the ongoing operations of the ABS. The government needs to properly fund the ABS so that it can carry out its functions and properly serve the Australian public. The government needs to provide clear portfolio stability for the ABS and to take an active interest in its functions. It would appear that failure is an orphan here, and we did not see any of the ministers stepping up to the plate to claim responsibility for what has happened. The government also needs to ensure that organisations like the ABS are properly resourced and skilled to manage cybersecurity threats and that good governance and procurement processes are put in place and followed.

There has been a deafening silence from the government over this census debacle. A grown-up, responsible government should have managed the 2016 census better, but it seems that the government cannot help but mismanage everything it touches. Whether it is the backpacker tax, the census or the budget, poor processes were followed and Australians are the worse for it.

I want to close my comments and refer to a recent media article by Mr Andrew Moore in The Daily Telegraph regarding the census. I want to raise the point that in that article there is yet another reported cabinet leak. This is obviously a divided government that spends its effort fighting itself rather than fighting for the interests of the Australian people. The article notes that the census:

… results were reported to Cabinet and suggested a very high completion as a percentage of all households and greater than previous Census results. What the number actually is we don’t yet know because it is in a confidential Cabinet document. The problem with the number, however, is that it apparently isn’t a whole number. It has a decimal digit. For example — 85.6 per cent …

Apparently one minister, who did not seem to understand this, said, 'How can you have a fraction of a person or a fraction of a household?' That is quite a revealing quote to be leaked to the media—a cabinet minister responsible for the most important decision Australia faces does not understand basic mathematics or statistics.

This is a government that apparently does not care about numbers, and maybe that is why critical organisations like the ABS are not given the proper attention and resourcing that they deserve. A government responsible for the management of the economy has a cabinet minister who does not understand basic maths. The Prime Minister, in my view, needs to take action. The Australian people deserve better. He was quoted as saying that 'heads will roll' over the census debacle. Maybe he could start with the responsible minister, and maybe he could also send that cabinet minister back to school to learn about maths and statistics. This census inquiry has shown that the ABS, IBM and the government have all let down the Australian people. The committee has made serious recommendations to address the key issues identified, and we call on the government to take responsibility, step up to the plate and fix the mess. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.