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Contemplating Australia’s census, researchers Mark McCrindle and Dorian von Freyhold join John Anderson to unpack how decades of changing question wording have quietly distorted the nation’s religion data.

John Anderson: Well, Mark and Dorian, thank you very, very much indeed for joining me. We’re all about to participate in a new census for Australia to give us a clear picture of how things have changed, where we’re at, where we go to in the future for planners and legislators, and what have you.

Mark, can I begin with you as a researcher? Why is it that the census is, A, important, and B, that people take it seriously and think carefully about giving answers that really reflect reality?

Mark McCrindle: Well, so much of the way a nation functions flows from the data in the once-every-five-year census. I mean, even our electoral boundaries are reformatted based on population data from the census, and GST distributions flow from it.

But more importantly, I think for most people, their communities, whether that be zoning at a local government level or funding of schools and hospitals, it all flows from this data. And so what we’re building as we fill this census in is, if you like, the social infrastructure that helps all of that physical infrastructure get built.

And as the ABS has rolled out with the advertising around this, this slogan is “Every answer matters.” And that is so important because it does all make a difference in the nation we live in.

John Anderson: All right. Well, a question to Dorian, but then back to you for your reflections on the same question, if I could, Mark.

There’s been quite a bit of interest focused, actually, not just this time round, but in previous censuses, around the question of what people believe. “What is the person’s religion?” I think will be the question that’s asked this time. And I think for a variety of reasons, there are some very legitimate concerns that we may not be getting the useful answers that we need in relation to this question.

Can I throw to you first, Dorian?

Dorian von Freyhold: Absolutely. And this is something that we’ve discussed in the media a fair bit recently. And to really get to the bottom of that, we need to unpack how the census has been asked over its 110-year history.

Now, the religion question has changed four times, which, for a survey instrument that’s meant to be longitudinal in nature and give us a really good understanding of how the population is moving, is odd. You shouldn’t change it.

But then, if we have a look at how the question has changed, one can quickly come to the conclusion that it’s getting easier and easier to respond with “no religion”.

So, just to unpack a little as to how the question has changed, up until 1971, it was just an open-ended question: “What is the person’s religion?” And people would write in their religion.

Then in 1971, it changed to a format whereby it was still an open-ender, but they added a little sentence, a curious sentence, which was, “If no religion, write ‘none’.”

Then in 1991, they shifted to a checkbox format, whereby “no religion” was the last on the list.

And then in 2016, they switched the sequence so that “no religion” was first on the list.

So, being a guy who spends his life in the world of experimental design and instrument and measurement systems, looking at the way in which the question has been changed has a major impact on people’s response.

I mean, the current framing with no religion at the top stumbles straight into what’s called the primacy effect, which means that people pay undue attention to the first option in the list and are more likely to select it. Very well established.

So, we ran a large experiment of 5,000 people, whereby each participant was randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions, i.e. historical phrasings or framings of the religion question in the census, and really wanted to understand how much that question actually distorts results.

Now, the amazing thing, and as a guy who’s run thousands of experiments, was that the “no religion” percentage was somewhere between 20 and 47%. So, a 27% spread between the different conditions. That’s huge. That means framing is really determining how people respond.

So, that’s fascinating in and of itself.

Our estimate, and this is being well covered in the media by now, is that if one had just kept the census question the same as it started out as, the open-ended question, and not distorted it, the actual percentage of people who select “no religion” would be around about 26%, and by far not the 39% which it was in the last census.

So, we’re essentially saying that about one-third of those who select no religion are selecting it due to the question framing, not to a change in a religion.

John Anderson: That is an extraordinary spread.

As I said, Mark, to you. Now, the question that arises out of this, of course, is if you really want an accurate picture of what’s happening, are we getting it?

I think, to again use an expression that Dorian has used, secularisation is real, but the speedo is not really telling us much about how it’s happening and what it means and where we might actually end up.

Mark McCrindle: Well, it’s definitely, as Dorian says, best not to change these census forms, and the ABS is quite reluctant to do so. In fact, they pushed back on secularists who wanted to change the question this time and, in fact, start with a question before “What is this person’s religion?” which said, “Are you religious? Yes, no, and if yes, what is your religion?”

So, this push, this lobbying to see the no religion rise, to see secularism rise, continues apace.

The fact is that the best data we can get is what we want. No one wants to see the number artificially high. We just want accurate data.

But there is a campaign around this. No other question in the census gets a lobbying campaign, but this one does. And it’s people trying to push up the no religion number and push down, particularly, the Christianity number.

And there’s no reason to add a question, “Are you religious?” because the first option is no religion, as Dorian said. So, it’s right there in front of you.

And I think this argument that, look, if you’re spiritual but not religious, tick “no religion”, or if you’re not regular in church attendance, tick “no religion”. This idea that the question is more a test of piety or religiosity or church attendance is a wrong push, and it’s false lobbying, because the ABS themselves put this in the religious affiliation category, and that’s what they’re trying to measure. It’s not a test of piety or how regular we are with our particular religious observance.

John Anderson: Well, there’s a question that immediately occurs to me: many of those lobbying for an increase in the number of Australians declaring no religion are effectively coming from an atheist perspective and wanting to be able to claim that more and more Australians are atheists. But does it mean you’re an atheist if you just say, “I am of no religion?”

Mark McCrindle: Not at all. Because you’ve got a lot of, even we would say evangelical Christians, very passionate people that in a form like this should be definitely counted as religious, that say, “I’m not religious. I have a faith,” or “I’m spiritual,” or “I’m a follower of Jesus.”

Those sorts of phrases is how they characterise themselves, indeed distancing themselves from religion or religiosity.

And so that’s a group that sometimes wouldn’t automatically tick a religious group. It’s designed from historical reasons around, particularly on the Christian side, denomination. So, there’s no box that says Christianity that’s got Catholic and Anglican and Uniting Church, etc.

And so you’ve got a lot of people now that are cross-denominational. They’re non-denominational, even though they would definitely be religious from a Christianity perspective, and they’re not sure what to do. They say, “Well, none of those, so I’ll just say no religion, and I’ll keep my faith to myself.”

And that’s all being missed. So, there’s whole groups that don’t end up in this category.

We found in our studies about 14% of the population say they’re spiritual but not religious, and you’ve got a lot of others who don’t fall into the religion category because of the denominational focus.

John Anderson: Dorian, I think you wanted to make an observation.

Dorian von Freyhold: Yeah, just riffing off what Mark said there. It’s really interesting to also have a look at how the question could be changed to be more representative for people or more helpful.

One way, given that in the last census 78% of people filled it out online, in the census coming up in just a few days, it’s probably going to be mid-80s.

Essentially, one way to really get around a lot of these sort of question problems is to simply randomise the response categories. Now, that would get rid of any of the shortcomings that we’ve identified and would normalise it.

Now, what Mark was saying there earlier as well is really fascinating. I mean, to dig into that no religion cohort, by no means are they all atheists.

But let’s say we went back to a question framing which was just a text response, just an open-ender like it was originally up until 1971: “What is your religion?”

The reason they got rid of that was because it took a lot of work to decipher a whole heap of people’s handwriting. Then classifying that is difficult.

These days with AI, that would be a piece of cake, and it would give us a really good understanding of the different facets of religion. How do people articulate it?

We found that in our study, where we did test that historical condition, people were very good at putting in a faith that aligned with a broad category, but there were a lot of interesting answers in there as well, which were, you know, “spiritual, not religious,” “atheist,” “I grew up Christian, but I’m not anymore.”

And getting that fidelity is possible with current technology by the census as well. It’s not a policy debate here. It’s really just a technology-enabled data collection exercise.

John Anderson: Well, modern technology ought to enable for that much more granular examination of what’s going on.

Mark, two questions really to you, if I could, and again, Dorian’s welcome to chime in.

One is that the 2016 census, in terms of the snapshot in time, really came at a time when there’d been massive engagement with the so-called new atheists, the Richard Dawkinses, the Christopher Hitchenses, etc., etc.

Times have changed quite dramatically. Leading thinkers today are, in fact, openly exploring the realities that Christianity, for example, may very well have made credible claims. I mean, you know, the list is really very long.

The new atheists seem to have recognised that they can’t give us a creed to live by. That’s the reality of it. You’ve got Richard Dawkins himself saying, well, he’s probably a cultural Christian after all.

This is very significant, surely, because this time round the environment has changed, and therefore one assumes that attitudes will be changing with it.

You don’t have new atheists telling you you’re a fool if you don’t, if you believe in God. They’re largely absent now.

Mark McCrindle: And which makes this census really important to get the data on it, just to see: has that decline slowed?

Because if we go back to 2016, in fact, if we go 10 years from the last 10 years from 2011 through to the 2021 census, the total Christianity, if you add up all those denominational offerings, went from 62% down to 44% in a decade. A precipitous drop.

And, yeah, in the five years to 2016, nine percentage points drifted from total Christianity. And in the last five years, up to 2021, it was another eight percentage points.

So, I expect that to have slowed, that drift.

But one of the big reasons that we’ve seen this drift is that Australians are reinterpreting this question.

Australians don’t want to be hypocrites, particularly around religion. And so they say to themselves, “If I’m not current in my belief or active in my practice, I’m not going to tick one of those Christianity boxes.”

And yet that is contrary to the purpose of this form. This question is religious affiliation. It’s not just about the current practice or the active belief.

We found, particularly with young people, two-thirds of them said that is how they interpret the question: current belief and active practice.

And even if we look at where it falls in the census form, this is in the section around cultural background. There are eight questions here asking country spoken at, language spoken at home, country of birth of mother or father, your country of birth, your cultural ancestry. That’s expanded this year to include four possible ancestries as people look back further and further.

And then the very next question is, “What is your religion?”

There’s an assumption, as this was put together, that religion follows your culture, your history, your upbringing, your background. And yet Australians are decoupling it from that and saying, well, if I’m not active in my attendance, I’m not going to tick a box because I don’t want to be fake.

And even the ABS, with their guidance on the website, on the census website, says your religious affiliation may be different from your practice or participation in religious activities.

So, this idea that if we haven’t been to church or done any religious practice for a moment, we’re not religious, is not the intent nor the structure of this question.

John Anderson: Well, if I could follow that through and then seek Dorian’s view on this as well, because I know, Dorian, you do really high-quality analysis of what’s happening in terms of your polling work.

And I think you’ve been referring directly in this very debate, Mark, to this.

The truth is that there’s a lot of evidence right across the Western world, including the non-Anglosphere Western Europe part of the West, if you like, that young people and young men in particular are coming back to church and the Christian faith.

There’s another matter that we ought to know about: young women are not — reflecting a bifurcation that it would be useful for planners to know about and social scientists to know about.

I’m quite concerned that you’re seeing a driftage in one direction on faith, on politics and so forth, on the part of young women that’s quite different to where young men are going.

Dorian von Freyhold: Yeah. No. Absolutely. And I think it’s, you part of it is no doubt a shift away from identifying as religious for some of these young people.

But the construct of religion, you know, which is distinct from religiosity, and that’s something that the social sciences have always been aware of. But the way in which people define, understand religion is fluid, and it’s shaped by our education system. It’s shaped by those around us. Generation or between-generation understanding of what religion is, is different as well.

So, I think that as we have a look at a longitudinal tool like the census, we really need to also understand how people interpret the question itself and that there may be differences between the generations.

Now, in our recent research, part of what we did was have a close look at the impact of the question framing based on people’s age.

And what we found was that boomers, or, you know, the older people get, the more religious they are. But at the same time, the framing impact of the question impacted across age groups just the same, so everyone was just as susceptible to having their response distorted by the question framing.

Now, somewhat shockingly, after asking them what their religion is, we then ask them questions like, how confident are you that your response reflects your identity? You know, was it accurate?

89% of people said it was. Only 8% thought that their response had been somehow distorted by the question itself.

So, you can see that people don’t feel tricked. They feel that they’re reflecting their identity in the question answer that they’re providing, but we’re obviously tapping into different facets of their identity.

So, to your point there, John, I mean, yes, younger people on the surface tend to respond with “no, I’m not religious” more often, but they may not be thinking about the construct in the same way that an older generation does, which is fascinating.

John Anderson: Mark, you’ve commented quite a bit on this, and you’ll be aware of what’s happening in other Western countries as well.

You hear a lot of reports out of France about young people going back to the Catholic Church, record numbers of people coming at Easter and what have you and seeking baptism or rites according to that faith.

You hear the same out of America. You hear it out of Britain, although it’s highly selective as to where they might show up. And some people say, “Well, we’re not seeing them.” And other denominations say they are.

What’s really happening here? Because I think you’ve made some comments around the increased likelihood now that young people will be in church vis-à-vis older Australians.

Mark McCrindle: Well, if they identify their faith as Christianity or their religion in the census, they’re most likely, the majority of them are regular churchgoers. Whereas, if you look at the older generation, only one in four who tick one of those denominational boxes will attend church regularly.

So, we’ve seen a shift from cultural Christianity to young people, if they’re identifying as religious or as of the Christian faith, far more likely to practice it.

We’ve got more than half of Generation Z in their 20s saying they’re extremely, very open to having spiritual discussions which might involve different views to their own, much more open to these discussions than the older generation.

So, there is an openness, there is an exploration, and that’s why the data is a bit confounding, that Christianity is on the decline from the census data. And yet we see this openness.

Young people today are more likely to be attending a faith-based school than at any point in our history.

We’ve got one in five Australians employed by a not-for-profit organisation. The majority of those not-for-profits or charities are Christian or faith-based.

If we look at hospitals and social services and other charities that are delivering services in the community, in schools, of course. And so we seem to be recording that people are pushing for a rise in secularism, but on the ground, there’s much more going on than this.

Now, your average Christian or perhaps ministry or church leader is not particularly pushing their people to make sure they fill in the form because they’re not interested in these numbers being higher or lower. That’s not of interest to them.

But that’s a bit naive because it does matter. And that’s why there is an agenda to push the “no religion” higher through lobbying, because as that number gets higher, the “no religion” — as Christianity drops — suddenly zoning for religious places of worship gets harder, funding for these faith-based organisations gets trickier, funding for those in faith-based schools gets dialled down, because, “After all, we’re a secular nation. Look at the data. Look at the trend.”

So, it does have real-world implications, even if people aren’t starting to recognise that.

John Anderson: I read the commentary in my own podcasts. I make myself go right through them. And I’m often amazed at the number of comments that are effectively saying something like, “I’m not Christian. I’m not religious, but I absolutely believe the Christian ethos is the right one for our country to live by.” And they say it more and more in the context, frankly, of the fragmentation, the atomisation of our country.

I think it’s important to recognise that a lot of people who don’t and wouldn’t identify as a Christian still recognise its importance to our culture.

You just made that point. One in five Australians working for a faith-based organisation. Virtually every major charity in the country had its origins in Christianity.

Mark McCrindle: And on that very point, John, we’ve surveyed Australians and 31% — this is beyond those who identify as a Christian — will agree with the phrases such as, “I believe in Christianity but I don’t consider myself a Christian,” or “I believe in much of it even though I’ve got doubts,” or “I believe in the ethics and values of Christianity even though I don’t practice.”

So, outside of that 44% who said Christianity, you’ve got another big support base behind that.

And the problem is that if those who are clearly affiliated with Christianity, if they’re supporters of the concept of it, are not getting that voice heard, as the ABS says, every answer matters, if that’s not recorded, then it paints a picture of increasing secularism, shifting from anything religious, and therefore that might give tailwind support for those who might want to bring about less funding or change up how our nation is built.

And we might cut ourselves from the source of what has been the backbone of our community, the lifeblood of the interactions that we have, which pretty much have been these faith-based organisations that still operate so effectively today.

Dorian von Freyhold: And, Mark, just on that, I mean, it’s fascinating as well to see how the media responds to these numbers. You know, how often does a commentator cite the trend of, you know, no religion being 1% in the 1960s and now it’s almost 50%, I’ll flippantly say.

And in many ways, they weaponise the census, which is something really dangerous. I mean, it is a very expensive exercise for Australia. The next census is going to cost us $720 million. For the life of me, I can’t quite figure out why it’s so expensive. But then it adds insult to injury if the instrument itself has been made incompetent in the process.

You know, it’s being reported as a consistent time series. It’s a broken time series where the census itself recognises and openly states in their documentation that their constant changing of the question may well inflate the number of people who select “no religion”.

So, here they are saying, “Here’s a time series, everyone follow it. It’s representative of the Australian population, where they’re at.”

At the same time, the small print says you can’t really trust the results.

And there’s a fantastic piece in The Guardian where the head of the census essentially states that the results of the census can’t be used to infer where religion is going because the questions have been changed.

They know it’s problematic, but at the same time, they don’t jump in on the regular when a journalist or the media misquotes or misrepresents the trend.

I mean, it’s somewhat diabolical because, as you say, Mark, the media talks about it, that flows through to politicians who then shape policy and, at the end of the day, it has major funding implications.

Mark McCrindle: Well, that’s right. And I think that my main, I guess, question here or perspective is with those that might be twisting the purpose of the census rather than the ABS themselves.

I’ve met with the census team myself, and they are doing the very best that they can to ensure that they are science-based in this approach and research-based, and not having this or any other question politicised. So, they do do a good and honest job in this whole process.

I think that we can and should do our civic duty and participate in this census, and access the results and accept that, notwithstanding some questions.

But when people are trying to, I guess, as you say, weaponise or use it for purposes that might be beyond its intent, that’s a problem.

And we saw that in the last one when Christianity slipped below majority share and so people made hay of that. And if in this next one, as we seem to be on trend to do, that “no religion” actually overtakes total Christianity, then people will make hay of that.

But again, there’s far more to the story than just the rise of no religion because there is a large proportion of those who are Christian, who just don’t make their way into the, or supportive of Christianity, who just don’t make their way into those numbers.

Dorian von Freyhold: And Mark, I agree with your point on the census. That being said, to me it seems to be very much negligent. Yeah, me as a measurement researcher, very much negligent to change a question, acknowledge that it may well distort results, not quantify the extent to which those results have been distorted.

I mean, for us to conduct that research was no major effort. You know, if the budget for the census is $720 million, for God’s sake, put $50,000 aside to check how a question reframing is going to impact results. That’s sort of the 101 of measurement rigour.

And I take your point that they’re doing their very best job, but at the same time, they really can’t make rookie mistakes like that.

John Anderson: I think all of us would agree that secularisation is real.

I personally have a view that those who want to use it as a weapon to say this is a good thing and we ought to continue down this road run into the problem that it isn’t working out very well.

Increasing secularism seems to have been accompanied, to my way of thinking, with a loss of meaning, a crisis of meaning really in our culture.

We don’t want to discourage people from actively seeking to resolve the question of who am I? What am I here for? Is there any purpose?

Those are very important questions, and you don’t want people being belted over the head by people who say, “Oh, you’re in some sort of obscure minority.” Because that’s the objective of a lot of these people. Let’s be realistic about it.

And the other thing that I would say is it’s time we were all humbled enough to acknowledge that we need to think again about what we do believe, what purpose we do identify with, because it’s not going very well. Mark, our country is atomised. It is divided. Trust has broken down. And we’re not doing very well in terms of people’s mental health, anxiety, depression.

I suppose my point is to say, with all humility, yes, of course we want accurate answers, but we don’t want answers that can be used to try and further agendas that I think a lot of Australians are starting to say are leading us into grim places.

Recent research is indicating that 68% of us don’t think the country is headed in the right direction.

Mark McCrindle: Yeah, the important points you make, John, and I think the message, while some people would say, look, Australia is post-Christian, I think the broader evidence is saying, no, no, no, it’s not that we’re post-secular, because secularism hasn’t delivered.

And this very same census form showed the number one long-term health condition Australians face is mental health, and it highlights what other ABS data does: the rise in loneliness, which is higher amongst younger people than older people, and this disconnection from community as technology has come around and transformed our connections.

And people in the space of 10 years have moved from tech optimism to tech skepticism because technology hasn’t delivered and the economic dream hasn’t delivered.

And so it seems that all of the promises of secularism have not delivered.

And so where there is pushback on institutions, it’s not just the religious ones, it’s all of those institutions as Australians look for something of meaning.

And that’s why I think that we are starting to see a change, as you mentioned, John. Young people are looking for more. We found being open to a spiritual search, for a search for meaning, being more likely to practice the faith that they espouse.

And I think it’ll be interesting this time round to see whether the census slide from Christianity has slowed. I believe it has, and hopefully those broader indicators that show a wider search for meaning will start to be picked up even in this data.

John Anderson: Any final observations, Dorian?

Dorian von Freyhold: Yeah. John, to your point, part of the risk here is that, you know, as one segment of the population lobby to get the “no religion” component up to 50% or more, is that people will start to potentially look at their own religion and feel that they’re not part of the in-group, which is a major driver.

We are more scared of ostracism than we are of death.

John Anderson: Say that again?

Dorian von Freyhold: We are more scared of ostracism than we are of death in the ranking of things that scare us most.

John Anderson: I rarely interrupt, but that’s just such a fascinating point, and I’d love to know just, hold where you were going. I think your viewers would be very interested in this.

There’s a second question out of it. Does it change as you become older and approach death?

Dorian von Freyhold: No, it does not.

We’re all herd animals. We all, if we have a look at it from a prehistoric perspective, we all are tribal. We all want to be part of the crowd. None of us want to be cast out and eaten by the sabre-tooth tigers.

So, there’s a very deep fear in us of going up against the group and doing something and having opinions which are contrarian. For some of us, it’s easier, but for most, it’s a very scary proposition.

And so, as we have a look at social trends, or even as simple as backing sports teams, people tend to fall in line with where group consensus is.

So, if there’s a push towards, you know, “no religion is the flavour these days, you know, it’s uncool to be religious,” a decent proportion of the population will fall in line with that because they’re scared of ostracism, scared of not being invited to parties, scared of losing friends.

And that’s a major risk as people do weaponise the census, or, you know, in many other domains, we see research results or polling results used to move the masses.

The foundational psychological mechanism behind people falling in line is that they’re scared of not being socially acceptable and being seen as a bit too out there.

So, yeah, it’s fascinating actually, just to unpack what we’re scared of.

Ostracism is right out there. The second is fear of speaking in public, and the third is fear of death, and it all goes downhill from there.

But I’m keen not to bang on about the research too much.

There’s the phenomenon of the Czech Republic, where they changed the census question and the proportion of non-religious went from 55% to 33, 34. So, it went the other way.

John Anderson: Dorian, that’s very interesting about the Czech Republic. Having, strangely enough, just been there and heard the claims that it is the most secular country in Europe, you’re saying that more accurate, at best, perhaps simply different ways of asking the question in that country has actually produced a very different answer.

It didn’t look any more secular to me than the countries around it. If anything, it looked a little less secular.

Dorian von Freyhold: The Czech Republic is a really interesting case study.

And while I’ve just said that in Australia, we’ve changed the census question to make it easier and easier to respond “no religion”, and in fact that’s part of the driver for our 39%, which, as I said, should probably be 26%, in the Czech Republic they have also been playing with their religion question and they changed the framing in the last census and they caused or instigated an opposite effect to what we’ve seen.

So, within four years, their non-religion percentage went from 55% to 33%. So, it reversed, but again, all they did was change the question. And again, people interpreted it differently, and you got the reverse of what we have here.

So, it’s a really good case study again to show how the question framing can massively distort people’s response.

John Anderson: So, just to close this off then, I’d be interested in your views, Mark and Dorian. As people approach the census, would it be fair to say that you would encourage them to take it very seriously and to think carefully about where they really stand on these issues and to not be swayed?

I mean, after all, it’s a private document, by their fears of what others might think if they were looking over their shoulder.

Mark McCrindle: Yeah, totally. And it’s just so fascinating to me that with the question that is before the religion question, question 23, “What is your cultural affiliation or identity?” Australians are going further back in their genealogy to bring that connection in. They want to really know where they’ve come from and establish that.

But the very next question, “And what’s your religious affiliation?” or “What is this person’s religion?” they’re just looking at the here and now. What do I currently believe or practice?

So, if people can have that broader reflection, where have I come from? What have the forebears borne out? What has shaped my family lineage from a religious perspective, from a faith perspective, that I’ve inherited that’s part of the worldview that I have and the directions and decisions that have led to where I’m at?

That needs to be captured.

Because if we have the cultural connection but forget the religious connection, we’re really cutting ourselves from the lifeblood of not only where our nation has been but where individuals have ended up.

So, that deeper, broader reflection on your cultural affiliation and connection is important in this exercise of filling in the census, not only from an individual reflection and analysis perspective, but that data does shape the nation.

Dorian von Freyhold: And for me, a very simple point, John, and it goes back to the measurement problem here.

As you fill out the census, a decent part of your brain is going to look at the first option in that checkbox list, and that’s going to be “no religion”. And that is well proven to distort the way that people respond.

So, I guess at the very least we can nudge listeners to imagine that those response categories are randomised.

That in and of itself would already be a wonderful change to just make it in line with the gold standard of survey research.

But at the moment, the instrument is very much flawed.

John Anderson: Well, all three of us are people who profoundly believe in our fellow Australians and want to see them flourish and do well.

These things matter.

So, your insights have been very valuable. I hope as many Australians as possible pick up on them before they fill out that census form in whatever form they fill it out in.