Reply to post:

Dear ABS,

This is where arrogance gets you. This is what happens when you grow so full of your own importance that you believe yourself to be infallible.

You answered every concern and question with a combination of boilerplate talking points and condescending disregard. You hoped to just push through, ignoring the people and attempting to trade on a record far more tarnished than you imagine.

If trust in you was urged, based on a perfect record then that trust is forever gone. You don't get a second chance at infallibility.

Blaming people does not unscramble an egg and apologies do not keep our data secure.

To Malcolm Turnbull,

There was a model that the Australian people trusted. That model was a paper form for an anonymous collection of statistical data. That model persisted through each cycle and with each change in leadership and it persisted because every time changes were suggested, independent report reinforced the status-quo and thoroughly rejected anything that had the potential to impact the privacy of the people and their trust in the census.

The current ABS, under David Kalisch, has ignored every previous assessment in favour of his own agenda. He has discounted the well-reasoned criticisms from a wide range of people who understand the situation intimately.

I do not hold responsible a minister only three weeks into his post, but if he continues to pretend the ABS are faultless then he will become part of the problem that has lead us here: the idea the the ABS should be trusted without question.

Scrap the results already submitted. Cancel the census. Replace the entire senior management of the ABS. Amend the laws to prevent the ABS ever retaining personally-identifiable information again. Set up a genuinely independent privacy body who must review proposed changes and whose decision is binding. Reschedule the census for 2018. Revert to delivering a paper form to every household.

Then, and only then, can the ABS start to rebuild it's imagine.

Or, you know, just spout a few strong words and follow them up with a few weak inquiries without actually addressing the issue here and now. That's probably easier.

Dan.