22
Census time approaches once more (11/8) (info.census.abs.gov.au)
submitted 1 day ago by Tau@aussie.zone to c/australia@aussie.zone
21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Got my letter in the mail today, doesn't seem that long ago that we had the last one...

Census date is 11th of August if you haven't gotten the letter yet.

I note they're definitely trying to spread the load this time by highlighting you can do it as soon as you get the letter rather than waiting for the actual date. Smarter move - albeit less amusing - than everyone doing it on the night, crashing the servers, and the ABS claiming it was a DDoS attack (I mean most of the country accessing your server does fit the definition, but they asked for it).

top 21 comments
sorted by: hot top new old
[-] dueuwuje@aussie.zone 1 points 7 hours ago

For those that want to skew the answers, remember.............if you don't represent yourself than the likes of those looking to oppress/marginalise etc. etc. can use the data to show "look there's not that many of them so I can x y z" If you do represent than they may be shocked/scared by the numbers enough to shut up.

[-] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago

Swap with some white men lmao

[-] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Did they address the ability to deanonymise this pretty easily? No way I will fill out a truthful census when from my answers and a postcode I could trivially be identified. Not with the current political climate, the nsw government was mandating trans people be steralised till last year and apparently a lot of people think that wasn't going far enough.

Why on earth would I paint a target on my forehead for a regime that eugenicsed me?

[-] Tau@aussie.zone 1 points 5 hours ago

You'll just have to choose between whether you want to be potentially identifiable or whether you want to make it known that there is a certain percentage of people with your specific circumstances/situation (who might need particular services, or be likely to vote for particular policies).

If you're unique enough to be obvious from a postcode and census answers then I don't really see how you can definitively avoid identification without removing potentially useful data (i.e. you'd have to remove/generalise questions or move to a higher level location category). It's a bit of a balancing act as evidenced in this thread with you worried about specificity while ada wants to narrow things down even more.

[-] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 hours ago

I stopped answering these things accurately when they left them tagged with your details.

If you want vulnerable people to fill out forms accurately you've gotta make sure that said forms can't be used to round them up when the political winds blow the other way or an occupying force takes over. Governments keep records for a very long time and censuses have a history of being used for violence.

[-] eremophila@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago

[-] Tau@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago

Even it that service worked having people go online to request an offline form is a bit illogical, at least they claim to have a phone line you can request one with for those who can't or won't deal with the web form.

[-] eremophila@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

Government and logic are strangers.

The form online to request a paper census still requires you to use your phone number for verification, but I still see that as preferable to doing it online where I am expecting a 3rd party app for face verification, google chrome, windows 11, a blood sample, and a scan of every book in the house.

[-] _deleted_@aussie.zone 3 points 1 day ago

Last time it took two weeks before their web site could cope with the load. Then they sent us a fine because their website wasn’t working.

Rang the phone number yesterday to request paper forms, gave up after 40 minutes. If they want my information, they can ring and request it, and I’ll make them wait forty minutes before I talk to them.

[-] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone -4 points 1 day ago

Meh, it fucks over trans people and doesn't acknowledge the existence of non binary or intersex folk.

I live in a blended family household, in a poly relationship with a trans woman and an enby. Between us, we have two non binary adult children in the house.

The census won't have the first clue what to do with this household...

[-] Zozano@aussie.zone 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This isn't correct, the census asks for:

Sex recorded at birth:

  • Male
  • Female
  • Another term

Gender:

  • Man
  • Woman
  • Non-binary
  • Another term
  • prefer not to answer

The info for the gender question reads:

This question refers to how you currently identify or expresses your gender, which may be different to sex at birth.

This question is only asked for people aged 16 years and older.

Data from this question will help plan health and social programs and services.

[-] brisk@aussie.zone 3 points 1 day ago

What options does it have? Just male/female/trans?

[-] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone -1 points 1 day ago

"Sex assigned at birth", like that has any fucking relevance to my life. It's not the sex on my birth certificate. It's not the sex that aligns with my lived experience, my medical needs, the way the world perceives me etc. It's irrelevant, and like many trans people, I will just be lying on that question, because my lived experience today is more relevant than out of date information.

[-] blind3rdeye@aussie.zone 6 points 12 hours ago

The information may not be relevant to how you live your life, but it is relevant to the census - which is trying to build an accurate picture of the variety of people who live in Australia. These questions, which you say are irrelevant, are what the census use to determine how many trans people exist. It is literally the opposite of what you said in your first post. (i.e. they ask these things because they acknowledge such people exist. That's why they have to ask.)

[-] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

These questions, which you say are irrelevant, are what the census use to determine how many trans people exist.

It won't do that, because it conflates intersex people and trans people.

If they wanted to do it in a useful way, they would also ask my actual legal/medical sex, not just information that is decades out of date. They could also explicitly ask if people are trans or gender diverse, instead of trying to infer it in a way that conflates two distinct groups

[-] Zozano@aussie.zone 3 points 8 hours ago

they would also ask my actual legal/medical sex

You can write your own sex in a text box which pops up after clicking on the tooltip.

[-] Zozano@aussie.zone 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

it conflates intersex people and trans people.

Conflation happens downstream of the statistics. If an organisation is conflating intersex people with trans people, then that would be deserving of drawing attention to.

If you're annoyed that an individual might misinterprete the results, that's true of many statistics.

[-] Zozano@aussie.zone 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

They could also explicitly ask if people are trans or gender diverse

If you're MTF, then you'd select Male/Woman. It not only implies being trans, it's the definition itself.

[-] Taleya@aussie.zone 4 points 1 day ago

I get not wanting the target on your back, but if they see higher numbers of trans people, they're more likely to stop fucking around on trans services.

I vote we all genderfuck the damned thing. If we can dick around for a jedi joke we can do it for our most vulnerable

[-] Zarobi@aussie.zone 1 points 20 hours ago

I'm willing to put down trans or non-binary on my form. I'm half way there anyway as a non-conformist

[-] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 18 hours ago

The problem is now, they can't tell trans and intersex folk apart with these questions, and non binary folk are completely invisible.

Their numbers are useless no matter what trans people answer

this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2026
22 points (100.0% liked)

Australia

5089 readers
68 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
lodion@aussie.zone
bestusername@aussie.zone
eatham@aussie.zone
Nath@aussie.zone