Sitting down to do the census will feel like a chore to many Australians but one share house is treating it as a social occasion.
Administered by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to collect demographic data, the national census takes place every five years.
Jem Newlyn will lead the charge and fill out the form alongside her three housemates on Tuesday night.
“We do house dinner every week so someone will cook – we’ll probably be hanging out at the table after work like we always do,” she told AAP.
“Someone asked to hang out and in our group chat everyone went, ‘no, it’s census night’.”
The 26-year-old knows her excitement is atypical, but she does have an interest in population statistics.
“I studied linguistics at university and we use the census data so much … so I think it’s awesome,” Ms Newlyn said.
“Most of us in the house went to ANU – everyone is invested in current politics, what’s going on in the world and what our changing population looks like.”
While Ms Newlyn will be in charge for her inner-Sydney share house, ANU demographer Liz Allen said until the 1980s, the census directed the “head of household” to fill out the form.
“In some adverts, you can even see the woman of the household, the mother or the wife, making sure that the male head of household knew their duty,” Dr Allen said.
“You can see over time that we’ve moved away from this notion of … a head of household, and that the head of household be a man.”
Ultimately, most households do not share Ms Newlyn’s enthusiasm for the population survey, but completing the census is compulsory, and has been since the first count in 1911.
If you don’t fill in and submit a census form, the bureau will contact you and ask you to complete it.
If a household continues to hold out, it can be served a formal direction to complete the census, which is a legal instruction.
If the census is still not completed after that, you can be prosecuted and fined up to $364 a day.
Australian Associated Press is the beating heart of Australian news. AAP is Australia’s only independent national newswire and has been delivering accurate, reliable and fast news content to the media industry, government and corporate sector for 85 years. We keep Australia informed.
