Parliamentary probe into census debacle

The motion, jointly raised by Senator Nick Xenophon and Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, was passed by the Senate on Wednesday.

The Senate Economics References Committee will inquire and report into the matters raised by 24 November.

The matters to be investigated are:

• the preparation, administration and management on the part of the ABS and government in the lead-up to the 2016 Census;
• the scope, collection, retention, security and use of data obtained;
• arrangements, including contractual arrangements in respect of the IT aspects of the census;
• the shutting down of the census website on the evening of 9 August 2016, the factors leading to that shut down and the reasons given, and the support provided by government agencies including the Australian Signals Directorate;
• the response rate to the census and factors that may have affected the response rate;
• privacy concerns in respect of Census 2016, including the use of data linking, information security and statistical linkage keys;
• Australia's Census of Population and Housing generally, including purpose, scope, regularity and cost and benefits;
• the adequacy of funding and resources to the ABS and
• ministerial oversight and responsibility.

The census was supposed to be held mostly online on 9 August but the website was taken offline at 7.30pm following what was claimed to be a distributed denial of service attack. This claim has been disputed.

{loadposition sam08}Both the ABS and IBM, which received a $9.6 million contract to run the census, were blamed for the debacle.

The ABS announced prior to the census that it would be retaining names and addresses for four years and linking them to personal details.

A number of politicians said before the census that they opposed this measure and would not be providing their names in their census forms.