Peter Stefanovic:
Well, joining me life now is the Assistant Treasurer, Michael Sukkar. Minister, good to see you, thanks for your time this morning. So are you bracing for anything cyber‑attacks tonight?
Minister Sukkar:
Peter, look, we’ve already had 3.3 million surveys returned, which covers about 8.5 million Australians. Touch wood, it’s been a fairly seamless process thus far so we’ll be hoping that for the remaining two‑thirds of Australians who are hopefully going to lodge their surveys over the course of today and this evening, that it will all be smooth sailing. We’ve put a lot of work into ensuring that the 2021 Census runs as smoothly as possible and we’ll be watching it very closely and hoping that it does, Pete, but you know there’s no guarantees, but we’re very confident that thus far it’s run smoothly and that it will continue to do so this evening.
Peter Stefanovic:
Have you received any threats so far?
Minister Sukkar:
Well look, Pete, we don’t outline those publicly. I think it’s fair to say that there are always people who want to test government systems, whatever they might be and there are few events more significant and bigger in a logistical sense than the Census. You can imagine that there’ll no doubt be people interested in doing so. Thus far we’ve been very happy with the security measures we’ve put in place. We’ve worked very closely with the Australian Cyber Security Centre, the Department of Defence, ASD. We’ve put a lot of work into it, there’s never any guarantees. We’re very confident about not just the robust security but the projection of people’s data, the end‑to‑end encryption that we’ve put in place, a whole suite of measures to make sure that this really valuable information that we collect on behalf of Australians to inform decisions of government in relation to really important matters, is done as efficiently as possible.
Peter Stefanovic:
I’m just curious, why is it so attractive to hackers, the Census? Why would a hacker care where I went to school?
Minister Sukkar:
Look, I’m not going to go into what the motivations are of hackers. Clearly there’s a subset of people out there who just like to test their abilities and they obviously get a thrill out of these sorts of things.
Peter Stefanovic:
Yeah, messing stuff up.
Minister Sukkar:
I am very hopeful that this will be a very straightforward and a very quiet Census night, we hope. That’s what we’ve planned for but we’re prepared for everything and fingers crossed. As I said, this is the first time in recent history that we’ll have a third of all surveys returned before the night. So we’ve got a really good bank of completed surveys, and they’ve gone off without a hitch so hopefully that can continue.
Peter Stefanovic:
Yeah, I’ve done mine. It only takes 10, 15 minutes so it wasn’t too bad. Just finally, what trends are you expecting to see this year?
Minister Sukkar:
Well, look, it will be very interesting to see what the impact of COVID is and the statisticians no doubt will dig very deep into the data. I think it will be a fascinating insight into Australia at a time with lockdowns, at a time where we've seen relatively larger population movements to regional areas. I think that will be an interesting part of the picture but there’s always remarkable trends between one Census to the next that no one can ever predict, neither can I and it will be very fascinating when that information starts being released from about June next year. There’s obviously a lot of information to get through so it will be fascinating stuff for all of those statisticians and again, it then informs government decisions, which is where the rubber hits the road for your average Australian.
Peter Stefanovic:
Just finally, I just want to get your thoughts on something Richard Marles has said to me. It’s in response to this IPCC report overnight and he basically hinted that the reason why the Coalition can’t get anywhere is because the party is being led astray, so to speak, by climate change deniers within your own party. What would you say to that?
Minister Sukkar:
Look, I think Richard Marles is a bit of a joke on these issues. I mean he’s the one that, before the last election, derided coal workers and then after the election, tried to walk that back with his tail between his legs so he doesn’t have any credibility on these issues. Australia has a very proud record. We have – between 2005 and 2019 – reduced emissions by more than Canada, New Zealand, the United States, Japan. We have a very proud record of achievement, not a proud record of making promises; a proud record of actually achieving these outcomes. That’s been done under the stewardship of this government. It will continue. We can hold our head high, we’re doing our bit and we’ll continue to do our bit. We’ll meet our Paris targets, we’ve meat our Kyoto targets so we’re doing what we’ve promised – we are delivering it. People like Richard Marles seem pretty keen on talking down Australia’s effort. We won’t do that, we’re very proud on the international stage as to what we’ve achieved and we’re very confident that with our approach to technology that that will continue into the future.
Peter Stefanovic:
Okay, Michael Sukkar, we’ll leave it there. Thanks for your time.