It was on the doorstep when we got home last night.
-twitch-
I’m one of those strange animals that loves filling in forms. The census can’t come around too often for me.
Hey, you wanna fill out mine then? 
I’ve been to the ABS website, and there’s all sorts of census guff on there, but nothing about what to do if you don’t get a form. 24 hours out, and I don’t have mine yet…
Try this number: 1300 362 883.
Four years ago, my BIL ticked the box to have his data preserved. I wonder what his descendants will think when they look up his religion and see “Jedi Knight”, and then look at his location and see that he was in hospital…
We had our census in Canada a couple of months ago, and it sounds rather similar: we got our forms, and there was a code on them that you could use on the website to fill in the information there. There was even a ‘do you want us to keep the information and open it to the public after 98 years’ checkbox.
We got our forms in English and French. Are there any languages other than English used on Australian forms?
I wanted to get the long form, so I could fill it out wrong and skew the statistics. It would have been fun to make it look like the average Canadian has 2.4 legs and owns a hyena. No such luck, though.
I hadn’t got mine as of Sunday afternoon. I’ll find out tonight if it arrived today. Doesn’t really matter as I’ll probably be spending census night at my girlfriend’s place anyway.
My form’s come in English only. Australia doesn’t have a second ‘official language’, so I think it’s one of those situations where you either have to get someone who speaks English to fill it out for you, or call a translator service.
The “how do I fill this damned thing out??” booklet that came with the form has a bunch of different languages (20 in all) all with a little paragraph, pointing them towards the Census Inquiry Language Helpline.
I’m looking over the Australian Bureau of Statistics site and I’m surprised to see that visitors to Australia are included in the census as well! I didn’t remember that from the Canadian census, though it seems to imply that tourists are included:
Tomorrow must be an interesting night in youth hostels across Australia…
Twenty-eight hours to go and I still await the knock on the door.
Researcher in the year 2120:
“And here we have one of the earliest examples of the Galactic Efflorescence of the twenty-first century (old style). Although its origins were controversial, and the few observers who noticed it at the time considered it to be a joke, the spiritual underpinnings of the Efflorescence were laid as a protest movement around this time. The joke concealed some old truths, truths of mythology and humanity’s place in the cosmos that were never completely forgotten. After a few decades, the Efflorescence shed its chrysalis, and as the movement spread, more and more gained solace and hope from it…”
<complete phone-geek hijack>
How do you say that phone number? is it “thirteen-hundred three-six-two eight-eight-three” or “one three-hundred three-six-two eight-eight-three” or something else? Is the 1 a trunk-access digit or part of the number? And is that a toll-free number or what?
</cpgh>
The second version…one three hundred three six two eight eight three (or double eight three)
I think that calls to a one three hundred number are charged at a flat rate no matter where the call comes from in the country. Or something like that.
Yeah, 1300 numbers are generally the price of a local call (i.e., flat rate of 25c or similar), 1800 numbers are paid for by the company recieving the call, and 1900 are paid for by the caller.
I’m looking forward to inventing my own novelty religion for the census. Anyone got any good suggestions?
mm
I used to use “White Anglo-Saxon Foot-Washing Agnostic”.
Why? So you can get lumped into “Other” with all the other non-standard religions? Because you want to risk a $1000 fine for giving false information on the census (on the off-chance that this is the year they’ll enforce that)?
I gather some people get some sort of pleasure out of “sticking it to the man” by lying about their religion, but I can’t understand why anyone over the age of 12 would find it amusing.
There were a bunch of kids on Whirlpool forums speculating about the same wacky prank. Why don’t you join them in their madcap hijinx?
Cecilism
Sacred Religion of Adamistic Enlightenment
Fellowship of Ignorance Minimisation
Veritas Derigo Templar
Or take your pick.
Dont forget to ride a pushbike to work tommorrow, so you can tick that as your means of commuting.
I wonder what happens if you fill the census out online and say that you do not have internet access.
Finally got mine today.
Putting “beer” as my religion.
In hospitals too! You’re supposed to go on the form where you spend the night of 8 August. My father is being admitted to hospital this afternoon, so he’ll have to be counted on one of the hospital’s many census forms. My mother is in Sydney for the duration of my father’s stay, so she’ll be at my place and thus will go onto my census form.
Confirmed - I did get mine on Monday night, and I will not be staying at my place anyway.
I wonder - am I supposed fill it in, to say no-one was at my place that night? Or just submit nothing?