Let’s be clear: the religion question being used at this year’s Census will be the question demanded by religious lobbyists, not the one the country needed.
Following overwhelming public support for change during a two-year consultation process, the Australian Bureau of Statistics had proposed making changes to address the leading nature of the question and deliver more accurate data.
It wanted to change ‘What is the person’s religion?’ to ‘Does the person have a religion?’
But then religious lobbyists put their foot down and called for the Albanese government to intervene.
In highly unusual circumstances, the ABS was not able to fully test its proposed new question in September 2024 and, as such, opted to revert to the old question.
In a new podcast interview, our campaign spokesperson Michael Dove discusses the events that resulted in the ABS re-using the flawed question for the 2026 Census.
We’re sharing some short videos of Michael’s comments on our social media platforms and here on our YouTube channel.
You can listen to the full interview of the The Secular Agenda podcast, published by the Rationalist Society of Australia, on major podcast apps or that organisation’s website.
We’ve provided more background information and a timeline detailing the events leading up to the ABS deciding to re-use the flawed question for this year’s Census.
With the August Census now fast approaching, we’re stepping up our campaign to encourage Australians to mark ‘No religion’ on the Census if they’re no longer religious.
Support our campaign by helping to extend our reach.
Once again, thank you to all the organisations supporting the campaign – Rationalist Society of Australia, Humanists Australia, National Secular Lobby, Humanists Victoria, the Secular Association of NSW, Australian Skeptics (Victoria Branch), and Recovering from Religion Australia.