As the Australian Statistician, David Kalisch, surveys the wreckage of trust in the census and perhaps his own career, the image of yet another once-inviolable public institution brought to its knees is shocking in Canberra.

Continuing budget cuts aside, the long-running battle over the independence of the Australian Bureau of Statistics was illustrated clearly in the Australian Public Service Commission's capability review released in December 2014 – the month Kalisch was appointed – but conducted almost a year earlier.