Serious about Census

8th of August 2006 is Australia Census Night and everyone here is serious about it. Each household should record the details of all people (including visitors) who spend the night in the dwelling on Census Night. It is a compulsary activity and penalties of upto $100/day is enforced for failure to do so. This can be completed either by filling in a Census form (distributed a week before) or thru the Internet. For an excited first-timer, I did both! Hehe I submitted the internet form, I'm keeping the hard-copy printed form in our file.

It was pretty interesting filling in the form, a first for me as I don't even recall any Census form of any kind back home. I remember someone just ringing the bell on the gate, though, and quickly ask the number of people living in the house. Due to lack of collector's proper identification, we would even hesitate to entertain the questions as we couldn't be sure who else could have access to their files.

Here, by law, the Census information are to be kept confidential with the option to make it available for the National Archives of Australia after 99 years! I did agree to make ours available after 99 years, no big deal ... something for our kids/grand-kids to interest themselves on I guess. They will learn about my religion, education, qualifications, income and job. Hubby, on the other hand, is an absentee the first time so all they got is his name and age :)

I wonder how fast the Australian Bureau of Statistics can process all the records and how soon they can reveal the latest Australian population. Just some census facts before the official 2006 release:

Population
20,589,208 (July 2006 - ABS)
--- less than one-fourth of Philippines population (87,857,473+)

Population growth rate
1.2% (December 2005 - ABS)

In July 2006, the population growth rate is based on estimates of:
- one birth every 2 minutes and 0 seconds,
- one death every 3 minutes and 55 seconds,
- a net gain of one international migrant every 4 minutes and 47 seconds leading to
- an overall total population increase of one person every 2 minutes and 12 seconds.