IBM will pay “many millions of dollars” in compensation for the 2016 census stuff up according to Malcolm Turnbull, with estimates suggesting the total cost will be over $30 million.
The Prime Minister confirmed IBM would cover the additional costs incurred, and said the problems that saw the census website collapse for 40 hours were “overwhelmingly” IBM’s fault.
“They were being paid big money to deliver a particular service and they failed,” Mr Turnbull said.
IBM had laid the blame with one of their subcontractors during a Senate inquiry last month, claiming they had failed to enforce a geo-blocking protocol that would have prevented the DDoS attack that saw the census website fail.
The head of the Bureau of Statistics David Kalisch said at the inquiry last month that an additional $20 million had been spent to fix the census website, with the ABS estimating $10 million of additional costs would be incurred.
“The ABS made a number of poor judgments in our preparation for the 2016 census that led to the poor service experienced by many households. I apologise to the community on behalf of the ABS and I repeat that apology sincerely again today,” Kalisch said last month.
The Prime Minister also said that despite IBM being one of the world’s biggest computer brands, the ABS should have supervised their contract with the company better.
“What is very clear is that the ABS put too much faith in IBM,” Mr Turnbull said.
