I find the idea of always listening devices to be extremely creepy. I remember 1984 as a kid, the idea of a telescreen always on always ready to show you as disloyal, and Winston always having to mind even his posture and expression around that screen. I don't like it. I want what goes on in my own house to be private, between me and the walls. I want a Siri I can turn off.

This is actually a nice improvement, because 1) you can train "Hey Siri" to your own personal voice rather than it being triggered by anything that remotely resembles the phrase, and 2) IIRC they mentioned in the keynote that the always-on detection is now possible because the motion coprocessor is now integrated into the same chip with the main CPU, so they can detect phrases efficiently as an always-on feature (locally on the device, of course).

As to whether they would send any of the detected phrases to the "government", I think that is extremely unlikely both for technical and Apple's ideological privacy reasons.

Can I go back to the old system of pressing a button is my main concern, if so I'm not too troubled, if not, then I don't want it, I don't like the idea of them always listening and always knowing.

I like how the article also says that some law people are concerned about it because even though you as owner give consent those around you don't on most of these connected listening devices... it's creepy and one day it'll lead to new problems when Governments want that info/ability.