With respect to those who feel otherwise, this surely was a completely predictable "fiasco". From the start. Letters arrived in the mail, unexpectedly and addressed to the Householder. Nothing in the media (that I heard anyway) saying the letters were arriving. Apparently they were delivered too early. Usually letters not addressed to me go straight into the bin. I suspect that's where a lot of the 'missing' letters went. But the mail out was done just over a week before the Census Date - surely way too late if people wanted the paper version. Wham, phone lines hit with a surge of people wanting to do the paper version - system couldn't cope because they weren't expecting people to receive the letters just yet. But again, we are talking about the week before the census.
There was so much push to complete the Census "on the night" - surely a warning flag it was going to be hit with millions of responders trying to do 'the right thing' and do it on the real night. Threats of $180 for failure to comply. Now, I know that was modified to be 'after persistent followup' but that isnt what an ageing population hears. And at least 15% of the population do not use computers.
I wont touch on security here, just the PR mess it became. But surely blind freddy could see this was never going to end up well?
