Labor wants to grill census ministers

Labor is demanding all the coalition ministers who have been responsible for the census at some point front a parliamentary inquiry into the debacle.

Opposition frontbencher Sam Dastyari says the government seems to be positioning to blame the public servants for the response to a series of denial of service attacks on the census website, which led to it being taken down for about 40 hours, leaving millions of Australians unable to complete the survey.

"Frankly, I think the ministers need to toughen up. I'd like to see the minister, Michael McCormack, and the two previous ministers responsible, Kelly O'Dwyer and Alex Hawke, actually front the Senate hearings," Senator Dastyari told ABC TV on Sunday.