Census in lockdown – what does it mean?

Glenn - The Census Expert

Glenn is our resident Census expert. After ten years working at the ABS, Glenn's deep knowledge of the Census has been a crucial input in the development of our community profiles. These tools help everyday people uncover the rich and important stories about our communities that are often hidden deep in the Census data. Glenn is also our most prolific blogger - if you're reading this, you've just finished reading one of his blogs. Take a quick look at the front page of our blog and you'll no doubt find more of Glenn's latest work. As a client manager, Glenn travels the country giving sought-after briefings to councils and communities (these are also great opportunities for Glenn to tend to his rankings in Geolocation games such as Munzee and Geocaching).

You may also like...

9 Responses

  1. bill says:

    Im homeless just logged in to do it won’t get past address. Circus clowns big red shoes

    • Hi Bill – sorry to hear you’re having trouble with the Census form. I know you can definitely do it if you’re homeless. There are some suggestions on this link about putting an address if you’re staying temporarily somewhere, or nearest location if you’re sleeping rough. https://www.census.abs.gov.au/doing/living-situation – And once you’re in there, “No usual address” is an option for the usual residence question. If none of these work, I’d suggest calling the Census hotline on 1800 512 441.

  2. After writing this blog – South East Queensland are out of lockdown, but still under restrictions that will mean a high rate of Work From Home. While Cairns in FNQ will now be under lockdown on Census night.

  3. Further changes to this: As of tonight, Regional Victoria (including parts of Greater Melbourne such as Wallan, Bacchus Marsh, Gisborne and Kinglake) is out of lockdown for Census night. In NSW, Armidale and Tamworth, plus the whole Richmond-Tweed area are going INTO lockdown for Census.

  4. So the (hopefully) final list of areas in lockdown for Census night are: Greater Melbourne (by 31 LGAs, not including those bits of Melbourne that the State Government classifies as regional), Greater Sydney, Hunter Region, Tamworth, Armidale, Byron, Richmond Valley, Lismore and Ballina, Cairns and Yarrabah in Qld. This will be important when it comes to analysing the data.

  5. Jay says:

    They should have cancelled the census this year. We’re being pushed around enough, bullied actually, locked down with ongoing strict rules and threats of penalty for non compliance. And now we get a new threat of daily fines until we obey yet another order from the supreme leaders. Wow, the lucky country hey. They even have nerve to make people call a number if they don’t want to complete it online. What they should have done is offer an easy way to print a hard copy of the census for people who don’t want to submit that information to the cloud. And while I know it all ends up on a computer, the method to get it there can be via a web server and cloud, or scanned from the paper into the database, bypassing the cloud. Take a guess which method is better for your privacy and security.

    • Hi Jay – thanks for your comment. I’m certainly glad they didn’t cancel the Census this year! It’s possibly the most important Census of our generation, as it will measure the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on society and on each part of Australia individually. No-one gets fined for not completing the Census unless they refuse to do so after receiving a Notice of Direction – most people are very happy to complete it (takes about 15 minutes once every 5 years) as they realise the value it provides. The online version is more secure – paper forms are not encrypted and can go missing – and at least one other person (the Census collector) gets to see it before it goes to data processing. The good thing is that no-one is at all interested in your personal information – it’s only in aggregate that it forms the statistics that are used for informed decision making.

  6. Diana Hawkins says:

    I have finished the census now found it can’t be picked up. For my health safety am not leaving home I don’t so I would have to walk with a walker provision was made for delivering form but not for collection

    • Hi Diana, sorry to hear you’re having difficulty getting your Census collected. The primary form of completion is online, and paper forms are normally mailed back. If you can’t leave home, I would think your circumstances would be similar to people in isolation, who are filling in forms online or ABS has provision for contactless collection. You need to call the Census hotline at 1800 512 441 and I’m sure they’ll be able to help you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

.id blog