We made poor judgments: ABS on census

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has acknowledged it made a number of poor judgments in the lead up to this year's bungled census.

But it's confident there'll be high-quality data from the 2016 survey, which was marred by a two-day shut-down of the online form as the system responded to a denial of service attack.

Chief statistician David Kalisch told a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday the bureau couldn't foresee any data quality issues at this stage.

He said the ABS tested the patience and commitment of many households in the difficulties accessing the call centre and online form.

The system should have been more robust to denial of service events.

"The ABS made a number of poor judgments in our preparations for the 2016 census that led to the poor service experience by many households," he said.

There would be a more rigorous approach in planning for the next census, he said.