2016 Census will “haunt” Malcolm Turnbull: Expert

BY LUCAS BAIRD

The 2016 census will “haunt” Malcolm Turnbull because it conflicts with the image that he is an innovation focused Prime Minister, according to an expert.

The crash of the Census website last week was only the latest obstacle for the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) after it came under scrutiny surrounding privacy issues, mostly concerning the extended time that sensitive information would be stored.

The Prime Minister subsequently made clear that heads would roll at the ABS and attempted to shift the blame to IBM, who hosted the census on their servers.

However, Senior Lecturer at UTS, Dr Bligh Grant said that this year’s census will hurt Malcolm Turnbull more than anyone else.

“The failure to execute the census will haunt Malcolm Turnbull, not ABS,” Dr Grant told City Hub.

“It is a stark reminder to the electorate that removing adequate funding from the core institutions of government can result in failure. The fact that IBM was implicated will also be remembered.”

“I think for most people the whole exercise radically contradicts Prime Minister Turnbull’s rhetoric as the ‘innovation’ PM.”

True to Dr Grant’s view, The Community and Public Sector Union have already targeted the Prime Minister because of funding cuts.

The Union’s National Secretary, Nadine Flood, condemned the Prime Minister’s comment that “heads will roll” and called for him to take some of the responsibility.

“It is Governments that are responsible for the reliability of public services and the Turnbull Government cannot dodge responsibility for slashing budgets and jobs. Prime Minister Turnbull should be apologising not finger pointing,” she said.

“Staff saw these problems coming a mile off. There are 700 fewer staff at the ABS now than when the last Census was conducted five years ago and as a result staff are suffering under massive workloads.”

However, while pressure from the public should be expected by the Prime Minister, Dr Grant said that he will not experience the same scrutiny within his party.

This is because key funding cuts made to the ABS were done under the conservative Prime Minister, Tony Abbott.