Your census questions, answered

Today's episode was made possible by our friends over at Rev.O Fitness. Ready? And good morning. This is the Daily Oz. Oh! Now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome to The Daily Oz. It's Monday, the 10th of August. I'm Billy for Timings. Happy Census Eve, Billy. Happy Census Eve! And I'm Elliott Laurie. It is Census Week, as Elliott just said. So that means that tomorrow, on Tuesday, August 11, every single person in Australia will be required to fill out the census. Now that is the largest form of information gathering conducted in Australia. It only happens once every five years. And this census is a historic census. Because for the first time, you will be asked about your sexual orientation and your gender. Over on our Instagram stories, we asked you what you want to know about how this will all work. And today, Elliott and I are going to take you through all of the answers. Billy, today is like Christmas Eve, except for nerds. Except for Dada nerds, yes. Being yourself and I and producer Alla. I am so excited about this. No, that is fake excitement. That's okay. So as you mentioned, on Friday, I went a bit very, I started posting two I have story, I'm stories to see what questions everyone had about the census. Which we then very quickly worked out was an amazing source. There was so many interesting questions in there. So we've taken it to the pod as well. Before we get into the questions, do you want to run us through what the census actually is? Yes. It is conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, kind of Australia's go to data service. They're amazing. The ABS, if you will. Yes, the ABS. And it requires every single person in Australia to fill out this really long survey. And it tells the ABS and then also governments about Australians. It's really, it's basically like a Bible of Australians. Now, like I said, every single person must complete the census. You need to complete the census wherever you are staying on census night. So tomorrow night, wherever you are staying, you are part of that household's census. Yes. So if you're staying at your friends place, you are now part of your friends household census. If you are staying at your partners place, you are part of that household's census. And the form only allows, well, the paper form, because you can do it digitally. You can also do it digitally. Why, why, why, why? Why, why, why are we, Why, why, why are we saying digitally? Really stumbling over digitally. So you can either do it one of those two ways. The paper one only allows for up to six people. So if there are more than six people in your household, you can request for another form. I feel like we're said this, but just to reiterate, it's mandatory. Yeah. Which is actually what kicks this whole thing off is I had a friend in the group chat message to say, hey, Elliott, do we actually have to do the census? I kind of can't be bothered. And I was like, yes, you have to do the census for democracy and for knowing a bad out country. But also you could be fine. You could absolutely be fine and we'll get into that. But also you should be excited. It's not, do I need to? It's when can I do it? I'm too excited. But yes, you do have to do it. And I mentioned this in the intro, but also just to mention again, this is the first year that you will be asked about your sexual orientation. There was a lot of political controversy a couple of years ago over this. Well, as I remember it, the government said they were going to do it. And then they said, actually, we're not going to do it. And then they said, okay, no, we are going to do it again, right? Yeah, it was. They were backflips. Anyway, we're landed on. It is happening. So for the first time, you will be asked about your gender. So previously, it has only asked for your sex recorded at birth. But now for the first time, you will be asked about your gender identity as well. Yes. And the idea behind that is for the first time, we're actually going to get an idea about what percentage of the representation identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community. And also some more data around trans people in the community as well. Yes. So some people listening to this may have already filled out the census like our producer, Omar. She was doing it last Friday, I think. During work. On the clock. No, because my housemate misses during the week. And she was like, guys, I got the form. Like, I'm going to fill it out. And I said, no, stop right there. This comes around every five years. We have to do it together. But then when we decided we're going to do the podcast on and out, okay, well, I've got the form ready. I've got the login details. Let me just see what this is about. Have you told your housemate? No, I haven't. Sorry. We actually did get a lot of questions as well about whether it could be done early or why it could be done early. And I did look into this. And it's basically the ABS just sort of trying to be a little bit more accommodating. So they say, if you know where you're going to be on the evening of Tuesday, the 11th of August, then you can fill it out in advance because you're confident in that information. And it's also to stop the system from being overloaded and also to take the admin out of it because they can't just let some people might forget and then go all crap. Yes. If you're going a little bit lost, I don't know if we're fully emphasised the point that if you are filling it out early, you have to do it as part of the household that you will be in tomorrow night. So you have to think about where will I be on this night? And that is the household you should be part of for the senses. Anyway, let's get into the audience questions. Please, admin stuff over. Let's roll over to the questions there. So interesting. Well, actually, Pop Quiz before we go into the questions, will you all be at home on Tuesday, the 11th of August? Yes. Yes. A hundred percent. I've no where else would I be. I'm so excited. I'm dedicated to the course. Yes. Okay. So the first question that we had was from Shiree. She asked us, what's the point of the senses? I feel like they have all that information on you anyways. Hmm. Interesting. Well, in terms of the first part, what is the point? Like I said, it's the largest form of information gathering conducted in Australia. That's the questions that you are asked. It's things like where do you live, who do you live with? What is your religion? Do you have any health conditions? What do you do for work? All those kinds of questions, which are really used to help make significant decisions by the government, but also by a whole range of authorities, a whole range of bodies in Australia. They make decisions on things like transport, healthcare, education, infrastructure, business, a whole range of different things. For example, it tells us how many people, it definitively tells us how many people are living in rural and regional Australia. That tells us how many doctors do we need in those areas. If we have an exact number of people that we know are living in a certain regional town, we are then able to determine what the healthcare system needs to look like in that town. And not just how many people, but what's the age of the people living in that town? All of those sorts of things that determines the needs of that community, this helps inform that. Which was part of the argument about why they wanted to start asking the question around sexuality. Because obviously there's a very specific set of needs for people in those communities. So without knowing how big it is, it's hard to kind of try to set up the systems around that. Exactly. So that is what it's used for. Next question. Yes. It was from Nikita and she asked, "Will I actually be fine if I don't want to complete it?" You will be fine. So if you don't do it, you will get a notice saying that you haven't done this. And if you don't then do it, you will be fine. $364 per day that you don't comply. That is so much money. So much. And that is a higher fine than if you don't vote in the federal elections. What really? Yes. So that's how serious this is. Okay. Next question is from Nina. Elliot, you're going to give us the answer to this. What if people just lie? So this was a really interesting one. It is also a fine. This one goes up to $3,640. So we can not a small amount of money. All right. Next question is from Dora. And this is one that we got a lot. If you're living in a share house, who fills it out? Will everyone see all of my answers? Basically, what is the goal if you're living in a share house? I mean, you do have one form that you're expected to fill out together, which would kind of entail getting to know intimate information about each other if you don't already know it. But if you do feel like there is a concern around privacy, you can actually request your own specific census, but I would get on that now. Yes. But it's like very much segmented. Yeah. So I fill out my information and then my house may fill out their information. So it's not like we all have to be huddled around the computer doing it together. Right. So it's easy to not share that information with the others. But can you click back and look at other housemates' information? Yeah, I haven't submitted. So unsure on that point. OK. Well, one of the questions that kind of relates to this is from Maddie. And she said, do I have to ask my housemates how much they earn? You couldn't really feel like someone else's information. There's so many questions that are super specific and personal. So you would have to do your own questions for yourself. But it would be the same thing again. If you do have any concerns, you can request your own private census. Yes. So basically, the census does ask for your total personal income. So that is information. that you do have to give to the census, but like all are an Elliott said, it's quite easy to keep that information private if you want to. One thing to also note is that most of the questions are mandatory, but a few of them are optional. I believe including religion and including sexual orientation, which is one of the new ones. All right, we then had a question from Sarah, who said, "What does it mean when it says we can choose to have our info shared in 99 years?" This was so interesting. This was so interesting. I was meant to do the research for this, and I didn't, you didn't. I'll do it. Basically, what it means is that. Wait, can you provide the context because I had never heard about this? So there's a box on the census that says, "Do you consent to having your information shared in 99 years?" And what that is is it's putting your census data into the National Archives of Australia in a census time capsule that can be then accessed 99 years after this year's census. So the idea is whoever's filling out that information will be dead most likely. I don't know how anyone who's filling out the census now would live another 100 years, but maybe we'll get attacked. And then after that data historians or your descendants can access that information about you in 99 years time. Oh, I see. And that, like it won't be de-identified, it will be what did Billy do for work, 1990 years ago. Exactly. Exactly. If you do agree for it to be transferred, you can't take it back. Once it's in the time capsule, it's there. So no take backs. Wow. Can I ask a question? I don't think that this is too personal. Would you do that? Yeah, I'd agree. I don't carry that. I would 100% do that. I hope that my descendants are listening to this podcast now. Well, yeah, I understand. Let's send this podcast into the time capsule. I don't know if anyone wants to be listening to this in 99 years, but if they are, hello, it's us from the past. All right, we are going to answer more of your questions, but first here is a quick message from today's sponsor. I recently saw Revvo Fitness was $9.69 a week. And I had to double check that it wasn't some limited time flash sale ending at midnight and turns out it's not. That's just the price every week all year round. There's no lock-in contracts or sneaky hidden fees and you get 24/7 access to every club. The catch was that there is no catch. Find your nearest Revvo at r-e-v-o-fitness.com.au. All right, so we've gone through the first half of the questions. We're now going to do lightning round on the remaining questions that we've got here. The first one is from Emily. She asked what happens if you're overseas on the census night? So if you're overseas on census night, you don't need to complete the census. If everyone in your household is away on census night, you need to let them know because that's when the fines start. If they're not getting any responses from a household. Yes, yes. And an interesting conversation we had when we were talking about this, this next question came from Billy Fitzsynons was what if you're a tourist visiting here because we were talking about how Harry Styles allegedly had to do the New Zealand census because he was touring there at the time. Yes. So census is not unique to Australia. This is something that all countries do, almost countries do. And a few years ago when New Zealand had their census night, Harry Styles, famously was touring New Zealand at the time and technically had to fill out the census. I believe he didn't and he just got the fine. Really? Oh, that's so interesting. No, that's so theory. That's not a fact. That's not a fact. He would participate in a census just for some fun and share his income. It's a lot of personal information for pop star. It is. Speaking of, the answer is yes. We are trying to get a count of every single person who is here in Australia tomorrow night. And tonight, I'm actually going to see a pop star perform. Her name's Slater. Have you heard of her? No, I haven't. You were a Cape Home Music. It's very, it's very brash. It's very fun though. She does have a song that's trending on TikTok at the moment. But the reason I got excited when I was researching this question is I was thinking we have to post that to the feed because most people do know. And they're going to be gagged that she's going to be counted in our census. I don't think you can say gagged. And they're going to be shocked that she's going to be counted in our census. Okay, final question is from Dana. She asks, is your data stored in a deidentified way? So this is prior to the 1990 year. This is the non-time capsule bar. So this is the stuff that they're working through when they're building out the census data. Yeah. Basically, yes, as soon as possible, your name and address are separated from all the other questions that they ask about you. So when they're looking at stuff like sexuality, for example, that's not connected to a name or an address. When the people who work at the ABS are looking at it, but they do store it in an identified way, surely, if you are doing the 1990s. It's actually a process called the separation principle. Don't ask me any more questions. But that just means that you cannot view personal identifiers at the same time that you're viewing statistical answers. They're completely separate files. Right. That makes sense. And also, this is a little mini-today. ABS workers basically have to sign an oath of secrecy for the rest of their life. They can't talk about anything that they see. Wow. But they do release the information publicly. Identified information. Yes, of course. So they will let us know how many people in Australia are religious. Now they'll be able to tell us how many people in Australia identify as bisexual, gay or lesbian. So there's all of that kind of information that they do tell us. But that is, of course, all de-identified. Which is a good point to end on. I thought we could kind of talk about where to from here. This is a question submitted by me. Yeah. Where are we going to find out the results of the census? So we will find out the information in June next year. That's a far away. They will be in data heaven for the next 10 months. That's how long it will take for them to get it all together and get it ready to publish it or release it publicly. And that will be a huge day. They don't release it all in one batch. Yes, it's phased. But we will be rinsing that. We'll be making content out of that. Yes. Honestly, I remember last time there was just so much interesting information. Were you working at the Daily Oils at the last sentence? Yes. You've worked here for so long. Wow. Hi. The ABS worker's seeing your file coming. They're going to be like, she's still there. All right. That one, we've got the tip. We've got the tip. Let's roll into the tip. Do you have the tip? I do. So this one is about my all-time favorite singer, Brianna. Yeah. She has been confirmed to be in the studio. Now the reason this is massive is because it's been almost more than a decade. Or in a studio booth recording music. Yeah. We're just looking at each other's. Do you know what? In the studio. Where in a studio? So we were like, is she in the room with us? She's not behind the curtain. Sorry. She's recording music. And this is confirmed by her partner, because they were not married. I think it's a rocky father of her children. He was on a podcast and they asked, "Are you the reason we don't have an album because it's been so long since she last pulled out music?" And he said, "No, actually, she's in the studio right now. If anything, I'm encouraging her." And then quickly backtracked because he realized, "Yeah, probably I shouldn't have said that." And it's going to get a lot of headlines, including on the Daily Osprey podcast. Wow, love that. Some fast facts about Rihanna and me. That was my first concert I ever went to. And the first CD I ever bought. Well, H-check CD. All right, that is where we are leaving today's podcast. I hope that you learned many, many things about the census and that you are as excited as Ellie and Alla and I are. About tomorrow night. We'll be back later today with the evening headlines. But until then, we hope you have a great day. My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arranda Bunjelang Calcutune woman from Gadigal Country. The Daily Os acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadigal people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present. Last week, I spent almost $10 on a coffee. That's the same as a whole week of a gym membership at Revo Fitness. Just $9.69 gets you access to every Revo club any hour of the day with zero lock-in contracts and no hidden fees. Check them out at revofitness.com.au.