Tonights Census your opinion.

[acropolite (Phil)]

Just completed the census online and I am mildly annoyed. IMO the general thrust of questioning had very little to do with information required for future planning and everything to do with big brother tactics. There were a couple of questions that I feel had absolutely no relevance, e.g the name and address details of my employer, and my religion. What's your opinion??

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

A waste of ink.

[mojo (Terry)]

I used crayon. I didn't want them to take my answers seriously.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

The husband filled in the form this year, and he commented on the stupidity of some of the questions.
But we said yes to archiving the info for 99 years. It's nice to know that some poor sod in the future will have to be bored with this form as well.

[Starkler (Geoff)]

I did like the eform choice.
Seeing a lot of "answer not required for this question" automatically come up because of previous responses was a nice time saver.

There were a few questions related to caring for others that may be useful, but I totally agree that knowing my employers name is of little relevance.

[Harpspitfire]

they suck- we have them in the US too and we dont fill them out they press charges- course i fill it in with total nosense answers

[rogerg (Roger)]

I don't have a particular problem with providing the information. About 50% of it I can see would have relevance and be of use for good purposes (what business can be successful without knowing the clients - what government can be successful without knowing their citizens?)..

BUT ... eCensus failed part way through for me .. Server 500 error. Login failed for several attempts. I thought I'd play dumb and do what they say, ring the 1300 number just for kicks. What do you know, ON CENSUS NIGHT the census phone centre IS CLOSED!! Amazing. I can't believe it. It's like the time I flew out of Alice Springs and it was after 5pm so the security guards had left for the day.

You'd think if there was one night of the year they'd have the phone's open all night, it'd perhaps be on census night.

I eventually completed it, and gave them some friendly feedback too.

Roger.

[iceman (Mike)]

I used the online form, agree it was a great time saver when irrelevant questions didn't need to be answered based on your previous answers.

I filled it in between 7:30-8:30pm and didn't have any probs with the server. Was nice to sit on the lounge with the laptop hooked up via wireless, watching border security and medical emergency at the same time

[Adrian-H]

personally i dont like this census much eather..

but then again, you have to know the state of the present to make a better future right?

you know how they say you are what you listen to? add this to everything you expose yourself to!

[GrampianStars (Rob)]

waste of ink imo as the ato has all the info already

[h0ughy (David)]

LOL , my son and daughter now have full time jobs as parent annoyers, paid over 100000 per year and have university doctorates ! They are also The church of dark skies

[JayJay04]

did it online, i left the religion question blank since it was optional

[ving (David)]

fact: 75% of all statistics are made up...

cheryl did the e-sensis
i wonder how many jedis theere will be this year?

[JimmyH155]

I switched off when I found no questions relating to astronomy - so went outside and looked at that beautiful moon with my grab 'n go

[Miaplacidus (Brian)]

I heard somewhere that the first ever census was conducted by Julius Caesar. Does anyone know if this is true? (I wonder if they asked what religion you were.)

[Photon]

I have a bit of an interest in Statistics and whilst we tend to get a bit annoyed with the questioning line it is very important to the statisticians and the Community. People who study religion will be very interested to know the various numbers and denominations for whatever reasons (that new optional question!), we all like to know the Average Wage etc. In Astronomy we like to know things about the Universe such as the number of binary stars in a given area, approx size of the universe etc etc. Universities, Colleges and schools use ABS stats all the time. Unfortunately due to Confidentiality/Privacy Laws the ABS cannot access data held by Taxation Office, Centrelink, Births Deaths and Marriages etc so has to go it alone. Government data is highly protected by law, its apparently the financial institutions, online dealings, Local companies etc, that sell our details to those tele-marketeers I believe!!
But back to the census, yes its a necessary evil. Big Brother watching ... there are better ways!

[cahullian]

Done mine on line and and can't wait until the next one. I found it strange that they only wanted First and Family names not all names. I thought they would have wanted to know everyones full names. The ancestry question was funny as I'm Irish my dad is English, His Mum was Scottish, My wife is Australian with Aboriginal descent. Had to tick a lot of boxes on that one.

Gazz

[GrahamL]

Three more to ranks from here ving

~may the force be with you~

[Gargoyle_Steve (Steve)]

I never received a census form .... at all, no one came, no notes left, no plain brown envelopes, nothing!

According to the online search I just did I can't do the online census version either without the pin number apparently that came with my form.