Census 2021 consultation – call for topic suggestions
Is the Census missing something?
If you follow our blog, it’s likely you read and enjoy the fruits of the Census. But do you think the Census is missing something? Is there a part of our community that’s being overlooked? Is there an emerging issue you’re aware of, that Census data would shed light on, help quantify, and therefore address?
Now’s the time to speak up.
I previously wrote about the ABS consultation on new topics to go into the 2021 Census. This consultation asks for public input about how Census questions should be changed, and we are keen to put in a submission.
We provide Census data to over 300 Local Government Areas Australia-wide, presenting it in an easy-to-use format to help you tell the story of your area, advocate for and engage with your community.
As such, we are able to represent our clients in interactions with the ABS, so there is an opportunity for us to put in a submission. While you can put in your own submission (and we encourage this), we would like to consolidate the experiences and knowledge of our clients into our own submission as well.
On that basis, we are calling for any of our clients to suggest new topics or changes to topics you’d like to see on the 2021 Census. What are the burning issues you really need data to inform? Please contact us either through a comment to this blog, or directly via info@id.com.au.
A few topics which the ABS are already looking at for 2021:
- Secondary home ownership
- Shared parenting
- Long-term health conditions
- Journey to Education
- More detail on sex/gender identification
- Reviewing the need for assistance/disability question
Are any of these going to be useful in informing Local Government policy? If they are relevant to your work, please comment and let us know how you would use it (particularly at the local area level). Are there other topics you really need info for? Please also let us know.
Vote to keep a question
The ABS have flagged (again – this comes up every Census) the possibility of removing the “Number of motor vehicles” question as they believe it’s collected elsewhere. I know that many of our council clients use this, so if you’d like to argue for the retention of this topic, please say so!
Criteria
While we encourage any and all feedback to this call for input, the submission itself will ultimately need to address the following criteria:
- the topic is of current national importance
- there is a need for data from a Census of the whole population
- the topic can be accurately collected in a form which the household completes themselves
- the topic would be acceptable to Census respondents
- the topic can be collected efficiently
- there is likely to be a continuing need for data on the topic in the following Census
- there are no other suitable alternative data sources or solutions that could meet the topic need
We can answer these – but if you are suggesting a topic to us, have a think about some of the arguments for including it in the Census (bearing in mind that there is little scope to change the length of the form, so when something is added, usually something has to be dropped off).
We look forward to hearing from you!
Despite any alleged advantages, I am opposed to a wider census net. There is already too much intrusive government in our lives.
Government is composed of fallible human beings subject to the same weaknesses and temptations as the rest of us. Ask those who have been thro’ the trauma of living under extremes such as Nazi or Communist regimes.
The real need is for government to be limited and focused on its responsibilities. It’s called the principle of ‘subsidiary function’.
A measure around Mental Health AOD related issues would be a metric of particular concern to me.
Mental Health & AOD related issues is of interest to me.
What percentage of household income (before tax) is spent on rent or mortgage?
The survey should include dwellings vacant on the day. Water, gas & electricity usages as per the last account received. How many phones and types used in the house including Internet. The name of the closest public hospital from the residents & estimated distance. The number of land holdings with no building. Type of heating in the dwelling. Type of fuel used in any vehicle used by the house hold. Has the dwelling solar, wind or other used at the dwelling. Rates paid totally to a shire council by each town.
Journey to education is important and should be included in Census. while providers may know where students live they do not know how they get there. Identifying transport allows providers to negotiate with public transport about demand e.g. buses on new routes.
It also means training can be structured to meet transport timetables eg classes need to finish by 3.15 to accommodate those catching trains.
it informs transport infrastructure about the use of transport by student cohorts.
Hi Glenn and Lailani. You may already collect data on the number of people who volunteer, if you don’t please collect volunteering data. In 2012, Flinders University estimated the number of volunteers and assigned a $ benefit to the community of $290 billion. The challenge will be the type of volunteering that is done and where. If a person volunteers for a community agency such as a local op shop, that is recorded and agencies like mine that find and place volunteers keep that data. But I suspect that thousands of hours are not being recorded for the informal volunteering that occurs in a community. For example, many people “help out” at local sports clubs but don’t see that as volunteering and that never gets recorded. As a result, volunteering is under reported and seen by governments as largely irrelevant and this gives them permission to not properly fund a service that is vital to communities. The Department of Social Services has indicated that it will not fund volunteering agencies beyond 2021. At South East Volunteers, we have been promoting the Volunteering Australia definition that states that any time given to a community or activity is volunteering. So it would be useful to ask if people volunteer formally or “help out” and record that as volunteering too.
Working in the disability inclusion / access space, I have found the Census data next to useless… It doesn’t tell us anything about the particular disability, or more relevant, access needs of residents. “Assistance with daily living” is incredibly ambiguous, and my recollection (this may be hazy though!) from last census was that it didn’t make clear different age categories: my four year old requires “assistance with daily living”, but his needs are vastly different to my 21 year old niece who uses a wheelchair and cannot communicate verbally. There is MUCH that could be asked that would be more helpful about providing place-based information about access and service needs. Eligibility for NDIS could be asked, but does Census not want to be referencing government programs etc that may be altered / changed…?
Journey to work data, specifically referring to actual time of travel, real time.
Also when people leave their LGA where are they travelling to go to work and what industry they are working in.
What is the most important thing in each adult household member’s life at this moment? And what can the government do to help sustain it?
Transport data, for all journeys. We need to understand who is walking, cycling and catching public transport for their journeys, or multimodal travel. This will help us understand spatial patterns of active transport or car dependency, which will help inform infrastructure and transport planning. It would also be useful for planning to understand how people participate in physical activity.
Homelessness. I’m not sure how this could be gathered but what does the question about visiting/not living in the dwelling on Census night highlight?