Taking the Census

     One fine evening in 1970, our family broke away from our usual after-supper routine.  We usually built up our collective brain power solving Two Minute Mysteries along with Dr. Haledjian, authored by Donald Sobol [a highly recommended family activity, by the way.] This night was different. We were going to do The Census. We kids had been hearing about it at school and in the media. Oh boy, we were going to take part in the once-a- decade body count of the nation!  Actually, it was all rather anticlimactic.  Just a few questions, nothing shockingly intrusive or brain exercising. Dad wrote in the answers to the whimpy inquiries and we moved on.

2011 OZ Census sample

     Fast forward to 2011.  The same media blitz exhorting residents to fill in the once-every-five-years census has been waged.  But the Australian census is different.  It is less a population count than a snapshot of a nation on a particular day.

     An army of census workers hand delivered the 60-question booklet to every household (and then some) in the land. Everyone is to fill it out, on paper or online, on the evening of August 9, 2011 and the census workers will collect them starting August 10.  The questions only concern those at that address at that time.  Have company over? They get a mention on the census.  Someone out of town or country (just the way Kev is in Indonesia) on the 9th? Well, they get a mention in Questions 52 & 53 for the official body count portion of it.  

     The sometimes incredibly nosy questions serve a further purpose to track trends  for both public and private development.  If half the nation were out of the country during the census, that might indicate that  more money needs to be put into airports (please!) or other travel related issues.  Child care or school construction issues could be raised based on census data. Who's taking care of the oldies? How many cars are on the road? And so on.

     With so much more at stake, I find myself once again getting excited about the census.