ANDREW LEIGH MP
SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION AND PRODUCTIVITY
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CHARITIES AND NOT-FOR-PROFITS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE IN SERVICES
MEMBER FOR FENNER
THE HON ED HUSIC MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR THE DIGITAL ECONOMY
MEMBER FOR CHIFLEY
CENSUS DATA RELEASE A REMINDER OF ANOTHER
TURNBULL GOVERNMENT DEBACLE
The Australian Bureau of Statistics today revealed the “typical Australian.” Remember when the typical Australian couldn’t even log onto the Census website?
Today’s release of the Census data is another reminder that the Turnbull government fails repeatedly when it comes to managing digital government.
When the Australian Bureau of Statistics website went down on Census night 2016, millions of Australians lost hours of their time. Everyone remembers the frustration of being told to log on at home to a website that was crashing.
Many people had completed their form, but were unable to submit it. Fixing this bungle cost millions of dollars.
After the farce of Census night the Turnbull government spent days see-sawing about whether there was a hack, a distributed denial of service attack or just a mistake that caused the site to crash.
To be clear – the Census 2016 debacle was the fault of the government, which left the post of chief statistician unfilled for nearly a year, and had three different ministers responsible for the Census in the year leading up to it.
As a result of this stuff-up, many Australians filled in the Census days or weeks later. That increased the chances that people were missed or filled in the Census more than once.
Since Census night, the Turnbull government has been blaming other people for their Census stuff-up. But in the Westminster system, the buck stops with the Minister.
It is up to the Turnbull government to explain why Australians should trust the data released today is up to scratch.
TUESDAY, 11 APRIL 2017
MEDIA CONTACTS: TAIMUS WERNER-GIBBINGS (LEIGH) 0437 320 393
ELISHA PEARCE (HUSIC) 0404 051 163
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