Australia’s chief statistician, David Gruen, has defended the Australian Bureau of Statistics ’ recent public debunking of far-right claims of “mass migration”, as he said the independent agency “stands ready to respond” to “egregious misrepresentations” of its data.

The biennial World Stats Day on 20 October comes amid a rising tide of mis- and disinformation around the world that has propelled often anonymous statistical bodies and their officials into the public eye.

While regimes in countries such as China and Russia have long massaged official data to match political agendas, Donald Trump’s brazen sacking of America’s labour statistics chief after claiming jobs figures were “rigged” shocked public officials across the world, including in Canberra.

Gruen, who was appointed head of

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