Pyne sticks with paper as web census fails

The decision to take the census predominantly online for the first time may have ended in disaster but Christopher Pyne is happily holding onto his paper form.

The cabinet minister, who was travelling on Tuesday night when the system was taken offline due to cyber attacks, much prefers to fill out the national survey the old-fashioned way.

"I like to sit down and think about it," he told the TODAY Show this morning.

The coalition has been broadly criticised for not explaining its changes to the census ahead of Tuesday, which included moving it online - unless people decided to opt-out - and keeping names and addresses stored for longer.

An angry Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has ordered a review into what went wrong and how so-called denial-of-service attacks were able to frustrate the system.

He has also indicated heads will roll but whose is still to be decided.

Labor believes it's the government which should accept responsibility.

"It's the government who said it was all going well," frontbencher Anthony Albanese told TODAY.

"It is the government that have tried to pass the buck since then. The government's heads are the heads that should roll here."

The census website was back up and running on Thursday, more than 40 hours after it was taken down.

Mr Pyne again reassured people their data is safe.

"Obviously it was disrupted on Tuesday night by elements here in Australia but that doesn't mean that anybody's privacy has been breached," he said.

"The information is still vitally important and everyone needs to get their census in."

Australians have until September 23 to fill out the online form and until September 18 to return their paper versions.