Yes We Count!

The Census reps: Georgina, Brian Howden (Secretary of the Mersy Lions), Rosalie and Ruth.

Last dinner meeting was a combined City of Devonport and Devonport Mersey Lions Club meeting. Census 2011 representatives Ruth, Georgia and Rosalie were there from the ABS as guest-speakers. Here is an excerpt of what Ruth McArdle, Assistant Director Tasmanian Census Management Unit had this to say to us:

The ABS Census is conducted every 5 years in Australia, and is the largest peacetime exercise done by the Australian Government. Ten million households are visited and 14.2 million forms are printed and distributed. The Census provides government and industry (and anyone who is interested) a picture of the population as it was on Census day, a snapshot of society so to speak. These population figures are then used by councils for example to decide about schools and hospitals, or for federal government to decide on where money needs to be spent or cut. We can see population centres move, like Deloraine in 1911 had the biggest population on the NW Coast, but now Devonport and Burnie are the biggest population centres. The median age in Tasmania is 39 years now, and Tasmania has the oldest median age of all states! Women in Tasmania typically work 30 unpaid hours per week doing household chores, but have more men helping them than in other states the last Census showed.

Everyone is included in the Census, backpackers, tourists, foreigners, homeless people, refugees, everyone,... except foreign diplomats! This means that everyone capable fills in the same form with the same questions. The Census form is also available online, which makes ABS's life a lot simpler, and is quicker and easier for us too. People who have trouble reading or writing or trouble with language are given access to interpreters, helpers and even simplified forms (addressing key demographics) are available for special cases. In fact this year there is a 'literacy pilot' Census running in Southern Tasmania (through LINK) where literacy coordinators offer support for filling in the forms.

The eCensus will be the preferred form completion method this year, and it is expected to take 10-15 minutes per person to complete. The 2006 Census was completed electronically by 6% of the respondents. It means no collectors need to collect your form. Collectors have an obligation to attempt to pick up the forms up to 5 times per dwelling. An SMS is sent to the collector of your dwelling when you complete your form online, and the collector can cross you off the list without needing to visit. The eCensus also means no painstaking manual checking for ABS, no problems reading bad handwriting.

Today the Census employs 3000 full time staff and has 9 offices. This has grown considerably since the first Tasmanian Census in 1842 when less then a dozen people were employed. In 1911 Census collectors (all 9 of them) were men, but now out of the 800 collectors in Tasmania 65% are female. The First national Census held in in 1911 took 6 years for the data to be tabulated and released (click here for an historic pdf), whereas now the data is released within the year. The questions over history have changed too, focusing on literacy in the early 1900s, and war-related questions in the years post ANZAC. In the 40s and 50s questions related to water, toilet and diet, and in the 60s and 70s questions focused on modern habits such as TV viewing. In the 2011 Census we can expect Internet usage question. The topics must always be of national significance, and Parliament, with ASAC's (Australian Statistics Advisory Council) help, decides on the topics as well as the individual questions.

The 2006 Census saw forms go out to oil rigs and gas platforms, to lighthouses, ships in Australian waters, and even to Antarctica.  The 2011 Census will be electronically completed in a lot of these difficult to access places. To arrange delivery to such remote places this has to often be organised as long as 10 months in advance, and the forms need to be printed as long as 12 months before the actual Census date. This means that preparing the questions on the Census need to be finalised well before that too.

Distributing the 14+ million forms is a logistical task of mammoth proportions, as is the printing of them. After printing by the late Burnie Paper Mill*, done on carbon-neutral (paper using 5000 liters of ink and 19000 liters of glue, B-Double trucks and planes are used in the process of distributing them. Floods and disasters typically require distribution challenges as roads are cut and planned distribution methods may not be feasible. Today we are still troubled by mice plagues that destroy forms, volcanic clouds that get in the way of the distribution, just like in 1911 when drought in Western Australia meant Collectors were unable to find feed for their horses, or for Collector's horses to get though flooded Queensland.

Tuesday 9/8/11 is the date to watch out for!!

* ed. This information may not be entirely correct..