Data collection fever as households sign into census
Annabelle Banfield |
Census night has arrived, although millions of households could not wait any longer to dive into some demographic data collection.
While many will use Tuesday night to fill out their census papers for the first time in five years, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said more than five million households had completed their form by 10am on Tuesday.
That figure is more than half the total amount from 2021’s count, where there were 9.3 million occupied households across Australia.
The biggest census yet will also be the most digital on record, with more than 85 per cent of people expected to fill out their form online.
The ABS is assuring people its IT capability and security is top notch, desperate to avoid a repeat of the 2016 census where the system capitulated under the high volume of traffic.
“For both 2021 and 2026, we partnered with the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cybersecurity Centre – the government’s experts on cybersecurity,” an ABS spokesperson told AAP.
“We are well-positioned to maintain security, data quality, privacy, and availability of the IT systems underpinning the census.”
Help is available in multiple languages, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics offering support over-the-phone and in person at pop-up hubs across the country.
In Burwood, in Sydney’s inner west, ABS officials helped local residents fill out their forms, with Mandarin-speaking staff assisting the area’s large Chinese community.
According to the 2021 census, a third of Burwood’s residents primarily spoke Mandarin at home.
Completing the census is compulsory.
If you don’t fill in and submit a census form, the bureau will contact you and ask you to complete it.
If a household continues to hold out, it can be served a formal direction to complete the census, which is a legal instruction.
If the census is still not completed after that, you can be prosecuted and fined up to $364 a day.
Jem Newlyn will lead the charge and fill out the form alongside her three housemates on Tuesday night.
“We do house dinner every week so someone will cook – we’ll probably be hanging out at the table after work like we always do,” she told AAP.
“Someone asked to hang out and in our group chat everyone went, ‘no, it’s census night’.”
The 26-year-old knows her excitement is atypical, but she does have an interest in population statistics.
“I studied linguistics at university and we use the census data so much … so I think it’s awesome,” Ms Newlyn said.
“Most of us in the house went to ANU – everyone is invested in current politics, what’s going on in the world and what our changing population looks like.”
While Ms Newlyn will be in charge for her inner-Sydney share house, ANU demographer Liz Allen said until the 1980s, the census directed the “head of household” to fill out the form.
“In some adverts, you can even see the woman of the household, the mother or the wife, making sure that the male head of household knew their duty,” Dr Allen said.
“You can see over time that we’ve moved away from this notion of … a head of household, and that the head of household be a man.”
AAP