The Australian Bureau of Statistics had itself proposed changing the existing Census religion question (“What is the person’s religion?”) for the 2026 Census to remove the bias-prone question wording.
In 2023/24, it was testing a newly worded question, “Does the person have a religion?”, with ‘yes’ and ‘no’ response boxes, plus a free-text space for people of a religious affiliation to write in their affiliation.
However, after religious lobbyists publicly called on the Albanese government to intervene in the ABS’ process and block any changes to the question in early 2024, and after the ABS then cancelled its major household test under unusual circumstances in August 2024, the ABS decided to revert to the biased 2021 question for the 2026 Census. It made this decision even while its own documents acknowledged that the question design “may lead respondents to a particular response”.
Here’s a timeline of events of how the ABS ended up re-using the same leading question for the 2026 Census.
In 2022, the ABS launched a phase 1 of its public consultation to gather opinions and feedback about the questions used in the 2021 Census.
The ABS announced that the religion question would be among the topics it would consider for change after receiving overwhelming feedback from the public that the existing question “assumes you have a religion” and, thus, skews the Census data.
The ABS announced, as a result of phase 2 of its public consultation, that it would test a newly worded question – ‘Does the person have a religion?’ – in order to “support more accurate data collection”. There was overwhelming public feedback in support of changing the question to remove the bias.
Catholic Church leaders, Catholic organisations and Liberal Party figures publicly attacked the ABS for “seeking to weaken the accuracy” of the religion question, and warned that changing the question would create a “new bias” in favour of ‘no religion’. The Catholic Church called on the Albanese government to intervene and block any changes to the religion question. A report in a Catholic media outlet revealed that Catholic leaders had written directly to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the matter. Former prime minister John Howard accused the public service of being “anti religious”.
In a four-page briefing paper to Assistant Minister Andrew Leigh (and to Treasurer Jim Chalmers in CC) in May 2024, the ABS comprehensively rejected the concerns of religious lobbyists about the proposed changes to the religion question, including to remove the biased wording. The ABS told the government that the desire for maintaining comparability with past Censuses – which the Catholic Church had supported in statements in its media campaign against changes to the question design – needed to be “balanced against changes to improve accuracy, relevance and inclusivity”. The ABS told the government that updates to the religion question were “required” for a number of reasons, including to “better reflect the diversity of the Australian community and address concerns regarding quality of data with the existing question”.
The ABS released a public ‘clarification’ to counter claims being made in media reports about the proposed changes to the Census religion question.
Documents obtained under freedom of information laws show that the proposed new religion question was “the most successful question” and had “tested sufficiently” in rounds of cognitive testing, and also noted that the proposed enhancement to the religion question “would not require Government approval”, as it was the ABS’ responsibility to determine how questions were to be asked while it was the government’s role to determine the topics to be included. The ABS also believed the timeline allowed for “sufficient time for Government decision and updating of the Census Regulation”. The ABS identified the large-scale household test scheduled for September as “critical” to assessing the performance of a newly proposed religion question and to determining whether it would be adopted for the 2026 Census. It also suggested that re-using the 2021 Census religion question would be an option should the large-scale test raise “significant data quality concerns”, or in the event no major test was conducted.
The head of the ABS, Dr David Gruen, told Senate Estimates that the ABS would make a decision on the religion question later in the year “on the basis of the evidence that we get from the test and from consultations that we have with religious groups”. During the winter months, the ABS held meetings with numerous religious lobbyists. All favoured keeping the existing question wording.
The ABS told Assistant Minister Leigh that a government decision on the Census topics to be used in 2026 was needed "in July 2024 to mitigate unacceptable risk". The ABS told Dr Leigh that he would “need to write to the Prime Minister to seek authority to progress changes to the Census.”
The ABS requested “urgent” action from Dr Leigh in the form of government agreement to the proposed topic changes.
The ABS wrote to Dr Leigh and Mr Chalmers with an “urgent” request for a government decision, seeking written confirmation and warning of the approaching 21 August deadline and implications for the large-scale test. The letter followed “verbal advice” that Dr Leigh had given of the government’s decision to Dr Gruen on 13 August.
Two days after the deadline, Dr Leigh confirmed the government's decision in writing to the ABS.
In the internal memo in which Dr Gruen approved the cancellation of the Census Test, a discussion of the ‘Risks and sensitivities’ noted the importance of the Census Test to the religion question: “The ABS has communicated the value of this Test in relation to the testing of potential changes to the question on Religious affiliation.”
The ABS announced publicly that it had cancelled the large-scale household test.
Media reporting said that Prime Minister Albanese had made a “captain’s call” on the Census topics and had “stepped in” because Dr Leigh “had not made clear to more senior cabinet colleagues that the statistics bureau planned to ask a sweeping series of questions he feared were inappropriate”.
At a meeting, ABS executives decided to revert to the 2021 question because, according to documents obtained under freedom of information laws, the ABS executives did not have enough data on the performance of the proposed new religion question. The documents also show that a slideshow presented at the meeting that considered the options specifically said that the question wording used in 2021 “may lead respondents to a particular response”.
Documents obtained under freedom of information laws show that an ABS executive circulated, via email, the outcomes from the previous day’s meeting, including that the decision was made to retain the 2021 questioning wording “as this maximises comparability and we could not quantify the impact of question wording change without extensive testing”.
The head of the ABS, Dr Gruen, told Senate Estimates that the decision on the final wording of the religion question for the next Census in 2026 would be made by him and “not the government”, as it was the ABS’ authority to determine how questions were to be asked.
On its website, the ABS announced that it would be re-using the 2021 religion question wording for the 2026 Census. It said it had opted for having comparable data with previous Censuses. It added: “Feedback from the additional consultation identified strong benefits for comparability of the data that were not as strongly identified during earlier consultations. This decision is primarily driven by the inability of the ABS to adequately support data users who need to compare religious affiliation data from the 2026 Census with previous Censuses.”
In a further explanation for the decision, the head of the ABS, Dr Gruen, said there had been a “strong desire” from religious organisations for the ABS not to change the religious affiliation question.