The census by definition is for people WHO LIVE in a country where it’s conducted, but apparently that’s not the case in Australia where they even make it mandatory for non-citizens (tourists) when they are only visitors (who DO NOT live in Australia in the first place), the logic doesn’t make any sense. Like if, a tourist should not be forced to do it since they hold a foreign passport and have no residential address in Australia.
Good question, it’s nuanced but the census isn’t for people WHO LIVE in the country. The best way to describe what the Australian Bureau of Statistics is trying to do is take a ‘statistical picture’ of the nation on that night.
That’s why I’m not a big fan of them extending out the fill in time, that muddies the data somewhat.
Having a quantified idea of what is happening in the country at a given time is incredibly useful because it gives everyone from students to the PM a better understanding of what ‘Australia’ was that given time period, and what it is over time. The more exact measures you can get for those the better targeted things like Medicare, tax, or social care benefits can be.
Example 1. It means a small city doesn’t need to run their own census if they want to know how many families live in a particular suburb to ensure they have enough school places for the kids, they can quickly check those sorts of things on the ABS.
Example 2. People can then also get an idea of the long-term trends. In a wine growing region there is often a large working and very productive backpacker community staffing the restaurants, wineries, and breweries in these places. This wasn’t always the case and may diminish over time again, this is important because economists can then use statistical analysis to assess whether those backpackers were a costly workforce compared to what came before or a highly beneficial workforce for the owners. They can also do comparative studies on wine growing regions with a large backpacker workforce to a small backpacker workforce.
There are all sorts of other uses for the data, for people who live here, and even for people who don’t. The British may want to know, for instance, how many British are moving to Australia, as an indicator of their own countries comparative economic health. Without the transitory people present in Australia at the time of the census some key parts of these populations would be unidentified until they eventually become citizens or residents, which can be over half a decade.
Its a census. They want to gather as much data as they can. The data would be incomplete without it.
That said, I’m a vocal objector to the census generally. It just shouldn’t be a thing any more. They certainly shouldn’t be collecting identifying information.
As a Canadian looking in, whose country flirted with stopping the Census under our conservatives, could only get to ending the long form census and making it voluntary back in 2011. This was disastrous because participation plummeted and the data became spotty. We since returned to normal census taking. The census matters because it provides data that governments, businesses, and communities use to fund public services, plan infrastructure, and ensure fair political representation. We have to have some trust in our institutions and maybe reforms are needed, but it’s vital information society needs to organize itself. I think people should demand and hold their institutions to a high degree of integrity and accountability, but be wary and cautious of paranoid ideology. Canada and Australia are very similar, with good people who stand with the rule of law and fairness.
The census matters because it provides data that governments, businesses, and communities use to fund public services, plan infrastructure, and ensure fair political representation.
I just don’t believe this is true, it’s the PR story delivered by the census team to motivate people to fill it out, but it just doesn’t withstand a moment’s critical thought.
Governments aren’t building hospitals and schools on the basis of what the census data says, they measure demand at existing facilities.
There is no government decision which is not better informed by other means.
They have incredible historical value. I got into genealogy a bit when mum died. People simply don’t turn up in official records all that often besides birth, marriage and death. Census data fills out that middle, nicely.
We do need to have faith in the ABS protecting our data for 99 years. But yeah: 99 years from now I will have no need for anonymity any longer.
Firstly, if this were true, it’s not an appropriate reason to be collecting names.
Secondly, it’s absolutely not true.
In the before times in a “census” you might have shown up and gotten counted and given your name.
Now there’s just no way ABS is publishing your address
