The Australian Bureau of Statistics, under siege over the census, has been indirectly dragged into the child abuse royal commission. Last week, the commission heard evidence from an Anglican priest and mother of an abuse survivor, and the survivor himself, about the unwillingness of the Anglican church’s Newcastle diocese to take her complaints about the sexual assault of her son seriously. The witness gave evidence to the commission of being told that Bruce Hockman, the Newcastle diocese’s then-business manager, had said “oh, we don’t have to worry about this case. It’s not going to get to court” in relation to the abuse claims. Hockman is now a senior ABS executive, heading the Macroeconomic Statistics Division. Hockman’s ABS biography notes that he was at one time CEO of the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle.