Making Sense Of The Census (Naked City)

There’s an American movie from the early 1980s called ‘The Census Taker’ in which Afro-American actor Garrett Morris descends on a middle class American family in their home with a string of increasingly personal questions. He defies all the limits of basic privacy quizzing the mom and dad on their sex lives and a listing of extra marital affairs. It all becomes too much for the dad who pulls out a rifle and orders the census taker to leave. In the ensuing argument the gun appears to accidentally discharge and the interrogator is shot in the head and dies.

These days most of the census taking in Australia is done online although their are rare instances where you could still expect a knock on the door. That will be the case with the massive Australia wide census coming up on Tuesday 11 August with the public well informed in advance. Thankfully it’s unlikely anybody, anywhere will pull a gun in the process or kick their computer to death in a frustrated act of defiance.

Keeping tabs on the population has an interesting history in Australia and goes way back to the very early days of British colonisation when Governor Phillip would call a ‘muster’ and carry out a head count on colonists and the military. The indigenous population were of little concern statistically and shamefully they were not counted as part of the general population until 1971. The first national census took place in 1911 when around 7,000 collectors or enumerators as they were called, knocked on doors throughout the country. Over the years technology has made the task much easier with the use of tabulating machines, some so large they could not fit through the doors of the Census Office in Caberra in 1961. Computers were initially employed some four years later and by the early 2000s, Australians could fill out their census forms online.

In the coming weeks you will be able to fill out that form in advance but it must reflect your situation on the night of Tuesday 11 August. If you are behind in your rent and about to be evicted by an heartless landlord you might have to list your address for that particular night as a sleeping bag in Walla Mulla Park in the Loo. If you are cheating on your partner and shacked up in some sleazy out of town motel, best to be honest as your info is supposedly treated confidentially.

For the first time ever Australians will be asked to identify their sexual orientation. There has already been some criticism from the LGBTQIA+ community claiming that a single question ignores the complexity of their diverse needs. For those that choose not to answer there is the ‘prefer not to answer option’. You will also be asked to nominate your sex at birth with options including ‘man’, ‘woman’, ‘non binary’ and ‘another term – please specify’. Once again you can opt not to answer.

It’s compulsory to fill out the census and if you fail to do so there are fines of $220 a day until you do so. There is always gong to be somebody who sees the questions as an invasion of privacy as well as the odd prankster out there, testing the ABS’s sense of humour with answers such as these:

Please list all household members who spent census night at home: Mum, Dad, Charlie (the bludging 44yo son who should have left home twenty years ago), Bob the budgie, Mr Perky the sausage dog, Sammy the goldfish and the ghost of Uncle Henry.

List all regular household members who spent the night at a different location: Barnaby had a tumble on the way home from the pub and spent the night flat on his face in the street before the cops picked him up.

Your religious affiliation: Have just left Hillsong to join the Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Hope to become a ‘pasta’ there!

Your sexual preferences: I would rather not say although the occasional session of mummification does turn me on.

I would never suggest that anybody deliberately fib on their census form and the information collected is obviously vital to so many government operations. Sausage sizzles are popular on election days and there’s no reason you should not acknowledge census night with some kind of neighbourhood celebration. If you do chuck a census night knees up, please keep the booze in moderation and tune your Spotify selection to catchy little numbers like Sammy J and Randy’s ‘Census’:

Let’s hope the eventual census results reflect the wonderfully diverse ethnic makeup of the Australian population as well as those who identify as part of the LGBTQI+ community – a statistical slap in the face to all One Nation supporters and other assorted bigots. It will no doubt provide an opportunity for Pauline Hanson, fresh from her lavish Euro holiday with Gina, to interpret some statistics to her own advantage. Not so long ago she came up with a figure of around 800,000 as the number of Australian residents who did not speak English. Many would include the garbled syntax that flows from her own mouth as a non English dialect, however more glaringly, what she failed to mention was that the 800,000 figure included 100,000 babies!