Published on the 15/08/2016 | Written by Beverley Head

Census furore sparks finger-pointing…

After winning the $9.6 million contract to design and install the online Census system, IBM has been taken to task by the Prime Minister for the failure of the platform last week, which left millions of Australians unable to complete their Census forms.

Malcolm Turnbull’s first public comments after the debacle were, he said, intended to be; “Absolutely straight and frank with the Australian people – this has been a failure of the ABS.”

A day later, however, his ire was being focused at IBM for the design of the system, and the apparent lack of adequate load testing. Claims were also levelled at the company that it had taken an inadequate ‘DIY approach’ to denial of service monitoring services which left the platform open to attack.

Meanwhile, there have been reports that continued budget pressure on the ABS exacerbated the problem.

Turnbull called in the Australian Signals Directorate to review the situation.

ABS chief statistician, David Kalisch last week apologised for the inconvenience and said that he had taken a decision to re-open the Census site only after receiving written assurance from the ASD that it was secure. “We have worked with ASD and IBM to, as far as possible, ensure that the system is safe and secure,” he said.

IBM kept a very low profile for the first 48 hours after the debacle, and has still only released a single bland statement through a spokeswoman noting; “We genuinely regret the inconvenience that has occurred.  We want to thank the ABS, the Australian Signal Directorate and Alastair MacGibbon (the special advisor to the Prime Minister on cyber security) for their continued support. IBM’s priority over the last two days was to work with the ABS to restore the Census site. We are committed to our role in the delivery of this project. Continuing to maintain the privacy and security of personal information is paramount. The Australian Signals Directorate has confirmed no data was compromised. Our cyber-security experts are partnering with national intelligence agencies to ensure the ongoing integrity of the site.”

It’s not the first time the company has found itself in hot water with an Australian Government. It was hauled over the legal coals for years by the Queensland Government for the failure of a multi-million dollar payroll system developed for the health department. That legal battle, however, resulted in the Queensland Government being forced to pay IBM’s legal bills, which the Feds may want to consider before launching their own legal action regarding the Census debacle.

Not only did the Queensland Government fail to win the legal battle, an inquiry sheeted home the failure in large part to Government employees inadequately managing the project.

That might have also had an impact at the ABS according to Darryl Carlton a consultant with IT Probity who is currently researching Australia’s failed IT projects.

He said that the Census debacle was one of a “repeating series of disasters” in Australia where public service management with little or no IT experience “made appalling decisions” and were often not able to tell if vendors or advisors were “telling you rubbish or the truth.”

Carlton said that reports suggested that “IBM had failed dramatically to do scale and security testing. It was focused on making as much money as possible and demonstrating its product,” instead of delivering a system that worked properly. He pointed out that the tender IBM won was limited from the outset, meaning that not all companies had the opportunity to bid for the work. “IBM was only interested in income not outcome, and has form in that regard,” he said, referencing the Queensland problem.

Matt Barrie, CEO of listed business Freelancer.com, took to LinkedIn meanwhile to characterise the Census failure as a “Colossal waste of money by the Government.”

He claimed that; “It exemplifies Australian government technology blunders- overpay by orders of magnitude for a substandard piece of crap. Next time get a startup to do a better job for a tenth, (or less) of the price.”