9 August 2016

Interview with Kieran Gilbert, Sky News

GILBERT

We’ve got Michael McCormack, he’s the Minister for the Census, but also a sports fan and I know a couple of the members of the Aussie Women’s team are from your electorate, from the Riverina.

McCORMACK

Indeed. They will be celebrating at Kildare Catholic College in Wagga Wagga with Alicia Quirk, the school captain in 2009, and Batlow Technology High School with Sharni Williams. Alicia and Sharni are great Riverina girls and, boy, did they win!

GILBERT

It was a great win and continuing the sporting tradition of Wagga and its surrounds.

McCORMACK

Indeed. A gold medallist! It’s not very often that a gold medallist comes out of Wagga Wagga. We have had a lot of international sports stars and Alicia is the latest.

GILBERT

Fantastic news this morning on that. Let’s turn to an area of your responsibility this evening – the Census. Concerns raised by Nick Xemophon, Scott Ludlam, Sarah Hanson-Young, have all said they are not going to put their names on the Census out of privacy concerns. What’s your reaction to that?

McCORMACK

Unfounded concerns. The Census has always had names and addresses. The ABS has always collected them. This is the 17th Census. It was first conducted in 1911 – names and addresses were collected then, just as names and addresses will be collected this year. I don’t see why there is the big fuss. I appreciate the fact the ABS is keeping the information for longer – from 18 months to four years – but that’s to enable them to track life expectancy trends, population flows and that’s important in this day and age. And it’s also an important, critical event to enable Governments of all persuasions – state, federal, local, Labor, Coalition – to be able to know where money needs to be spent – in remote communities, regional communities and capital cities.

GILBERT

You spoke about some of the concerns. One of them is that, previously, the data, the ABS would keep the numbers for 18 months. They are now going to keep them for four years. The other worry is that it’s all being done online as well and the question of cyber security. Can you reassure our viewers that things are secure on that front?

McCORMACK

The ABS has assured the Government that the information is sacrosanct. They assure the Government and the people of Australia that they have never had a breach of privacy or security as far as the Census is concerned and they are not expecting that to happen tonight with this Census. It’s a huge logistical programme, the Census, it is. But it’s an important event and 98.2 per cent of Australians happily got on board in 2011. Bill Shorten was running it then. And there is bi-partisan support for it. I’m sure that tonight will go off very well and the data collected will enable Governments, as I say, of all persuasions, to be able to fund and resource Australia into the future properly.

GILBERT

 Didn’t a large number of those who have filled out the Census previously give the ABS the right and capacity to hold on to the names for 99 years? They’ve already agreed to that.

McCORMACK

The ABS destroys the names and addresses and the data they don’t need after 18 months previously and four years this time. But ..

GILBERT

… If you don’t fill out the agreement to, sort of, hold it in the longer term?

McCORMACK

Indeed. And nobody apart from ABS staff can access the names and addresses – nobody. Not a Court, not a Minister, not, indeed, the Prime Minister.

GILBERT

Is the ABS in this Census linking the names to any further detail in any matter different to what they have previously done? Because that’s one of the things that Nick Xenophon is suggesting.

McCORMACK

What the ABS does is it creates anonymous linkage keys so they can link data sets together. Once the data is collected and processed, the names and addresses are then stored securely and separately from the rest of the data set information.

GILBERT

Is that new or is that the way they have done it previously?

McCORMACK

No, that’s the way they have done it previously and there has never been – never been – a breach of security as far as the Census is concerned.

GILBERT

And are you worried at all, given the publicity around this particular Census, that there’s a potential for hackers, that malicious intent may seek to bring it down?

McCORMACK

The ABS assures us, assures the people of Australia, that their privacy, security and encryption keys and information is absolutely paramount – absolutely what it ought to be. And I am sure that those assurances should be taken on board by Australians. They should be taken on board, most of all, by Parliamentarians, who will use this raw data to be able to know the sorts of trends going on in their own communities. And I want to ensure Senators Xenophon and Sarah Hanson-Young that South Australia needs that information too. They should be encouraging South Australians to fill the Census out as all other Australians should tonight. Get on board. It’s an exciting time. There’s never been a more exciting time with all the gold medals we are winning in Rio. But it’s also an exciting time to be able to fill out that Census information. It only takes 20 minutes and, look, they are pretty mundane questions and most people have been having absolutely no trouble.

GILBERT

So what do you put the concern down to then, that’s been ramped up, not just on social media but elsewhere?

McCORMACK

The people who are raising concerns now are the same sorts of people who were raising concerns in 2011, the same sorts of people in 2006. There has always been people flagging privacy issues with the Census – they were probably around in 1911. But the ABS has never had a privacy breach, they’re not expecting to this time, and they have assured Government they won’t have a privacy breach this time. It’s a critical document for the future of Australia and I urge and encourage all Australians to get on board tonight and fill it out.

GILBERT

Minister for the Census, Michael McCormack. Thank you.

McCORMACK

Thanks Kieran.