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Brian Pink has squeezed me in between international meetings - one in Switzerland, the next in France, where he is planning something big; the creation of a ''super-census'' able to collect more information about us more cheaply.

Australia's chief statistician slips into Rocksalt in the Canberra suburb of Hawker like a local, which he is. He lives nearby in Belconnen, the north Canberra satellite where the Australian Bureau of Statistics has its headquarters, about 10 kilometres from the apex of government in the parliamentary triangle.

''Our location is an advantage,'' he says over a simple starter of dips and bread. ''Probably 60 per cent of my Canberra staff live in the Belconnen catchment.'' It locks them in, keeps them with the bureau.

So does the rare privilege of having an office in each state capital. ''Many of the graduates we hire want to go back to their home states. We can let them - each state office has a specialty. All of our agricultural work is done in Tasmania for example. Our competitors can't; they lose staff.''

Pink has run the bureau for five years. Before that he ran Statistics New Zealand, landing the job because he was an ABS veteran, having joined what was then the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics straight out of university in 1966. ''I processed motor vehicle registrations in the Sydney office by hand,'' he says. ''We had to count up the number of Holdens and Falcons on lists sent from the motor registry.''

''I said to the lady who was in charge of it - all of the adding machine operators were women - we ought to be able to write a program to do this. Before long I was computerising the office flexitime system.''

Spiced calamari and pumpkin filos arrive, with nothing stronger than water. Pink is far from reserved, but extravagance and indulgence have been anything but hallmarks of his time at the bureau.

When Canberra called the first time Pink didn't want to go. He and his first wife, Sandra, whom he met when sailing on Middle Harbour, were planning a family. The northern beaches area, his home since childhood, was his playground. (His father died only recently in the family home at Seaforth, aged 97.) He accepted the move on the proviso that it was only for six months and they could commute. ''But they promoted me twice, so we moved to Belconnen.''

Harnessing the power of computing has been the dominant thread in Pink's ABS career, as has putting distance between the bureau and politicians.

Within months of taking the top job on his return from New Zealand he cut off the early access to key statistics traditionally offered to the Treasurer and other ministers, insisting they see them at the same time as everyone else - 11.30am.

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The man who's got your number

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