The ABS spent almost $500,000 on office greenery in 2015, more than testing the Census website in the same year and only a little less than the total amount spent on load testing the website overall. Picture: Gatty.

Data on government contracts reveal the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) spent almost half a million dollars on pot plants last year, almost $100,000 more than testing the Census website for the entirely predictable onslaught of millions of people logging on simultaneously.

It was only two months ago that the ABS started pouring a few more dollars into the website.

Overall, the agency spent more on photocopying and, ironically given the alleged online attack, on antivirus software than the total amount spent on “load testing”.

Figures lodged with the government’s tenders website, listing all contracts entered into by Commonwealth agencies, show the ABS placed a higher priority on plants in late 2015 — just months out from the Census — than the website’s integrity.

In 2015, $417,540 was spent with Living Simply for “national live indoor plant hire services”. On its website, Living Simply describes its service as a “simple, low-maintenance solution that will transform your space without the cost of regular maintenance”.

In contrast, in the same year $325,000 was spent by Melbourne-based company Revolution IT for “licences for census load testing” covering the 12 months from October 2015.

Two smaller contracts were awarded to Revolution in late May and late June this year for load testing services but even adding those to the main contract from 2015 the ABS spent only $50,000 more on testing the Census website than plants to decorate its offices.

The agency spent $5 million printing the census forms they didn’t want many people to use, $1 million on antivirus software and $50,000 on photocopying in 2015 — all individually more than the total cost of testing the Census website to destruction.

The ABS has been contacted for comment but the penchant for pricey plants will do little to instil confidence in the organisation.

On Wednesday, Small Business Minister Michael McCormack denied the Census website had been hacked, instead saying a “hardware failure” relating to “an attempt to frustrate the collection of Bureau of Statistics census data” had led to the site being shut down on Tuesday night.

Melbourne-based company Revolution IT was awarded a series of contracts with the ABS for load testing services on the website.

Just yesterday, ABS Census boss Chris Libreri was adamant that all was well, telling news.com.au the system performed well in load testing and would not be a repeat of the disastrous Click Frenzy sale of 2012.

“We have load tested it at 150 per cent of the number of people we think are going to be on it on Tuesday for eight hours straight and it didn’t look like flinching,” he said.

“We wouldn’t do it unless we were able to safely do it, we have evolved it and we are confident.”

By 8.30pm last night, the ABS was admitting all had not gone to plan.Source:Supplied

The big chiefs at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) must be wondering if their time in the corner office might be up sooner than they thought.

The ABS is facing questions as to whether it was ever properly prepared for the online onslaught to the Census website.

The spotlight has fallen on the ABS’s decision to “virtualise” the census servers.

In 2014, IT giant IBM was given a $9.6 million contract by the government agency to host the 2016 online Census “in order to ensure the expected high volumes would be properly managed”, IT News reported.

IBM has been a long-term partner of the ABS and was awarded a $9 million deal in 2005 to develop the more limited opt-in online option for the previous censuses. At the time, the online census servers were hosted out of a data centre in Sydney’s Hills district in the city’s northwest.

But for 2016, it was decided to make use of a “private cloud” to handle the spike in data rather than using existing servers that would stand mostly idle in non-census years.

“The ABS virtualisation project was successfully completed providing a very efficient platform for ongoing ABS operations, including supporting a number of components of the digital census in 2016,” an ABS spokesman told IT News in 2014.

In hindsight, it seems obvious that if you tell 24 million people in a single country to all log on at once to the same website things are going to start going downhill pretty quickly.

ABS statistician David Kalisch (left) and head of the 2016 Census Program Duncan Young, in Canberra on Tuesday. Picture: Kym SmithSource:News Corp Australia

Initially the ABS was insistent that the massive fault at the heart of the 2016 Census wasn’t at their end.

The trouble began about 6pm, as Australians returned from work and logged on. Finding they couldn’t many turned to Twitter for answers.

First the ABS replied the website was working just as expected. Then they shifted the fault back onto the public, suggesting the issue was probably people using out-of-date browsers or maybe we were all typing in the wrong web address. Silly Australians!

However by 10pm, even the ABS had to admit Census 2016 had become #censusfail when they shut down the entire site.

This morning, the organisation blamed a series of attacks by hackers that had caused Australia to go into a collective meltdown.

Whatever occurred, the best laid plans, it appears, didn’t work. Either the load testing and virtual servers didn’t predict or handle the amount of people going online at once. Or, if the hacking claims are proved correct, an outside force pushed the census’ IT systems and advance testing beyond any reasonable operating capacity.

Small Business Minister Michael McCormack had governmental responsibility for the Census.Source:News Corp Australia

On Wednesday morning, ABS chief statistician David Kalisch told ABC the census website was shut down after being hacked. “It was an attack,” he said. “It was quite clear it was malicious.”

Meanwhile, Labor has smelt blood and is calling for Small Business Minister Michael McCormack, who was responsible for the botched Census, to resign.

Shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh said the government failed to properly explain its decision to take the national survey online.

“If you can’t get the Census right how can you govern the country?” he told ABC radio on Wednesday.

THE minister responsible for the Census has denied that the national survey was “hacked” or “attacked” despite public statements from the ABS claiming otherwise.

In an overdue press conference this morning after almost 12 hours of silence, Michael McCormack said: “This was not an attack, nor was it a hack.

“It was an attempt to frustrate the collection of data, an attempt to frustrate the collection of data. People should feel rest assured their data is safe.”

This directly contradicts earlier tweets and a press release issued by the ABS this morning, which stated there were four “attacks”, and the site was shut down after the final one.

— with AAP