With a month to go, the ABS faces a State of Origin size challenge to complete census

HOW many people still need to do the 2016 Census? Here are the numbers in terms of figures we all understand — State of Origin crowds.

Rod ChesterNational Technology Writer

less than 2 min read

August 23, 2016 - 10:00PM

News Corp Australia Network

Head of Census Duncan Young says two thirds of forms are in, give or take.

WHILE the Australian Bureau of Statistics still refuses to detail how many people have managed to use the troubled online 2016 Census, with a month to go the success of the census comes down to a basic equation.

In order for the Census to be complete, each day for the next month the number of Australians who submit their Census forms has to equal the crowds you could fit into Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium and into Sydney’s ANZ Stadium when they are both sold out for two State of Origin clashes.

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The 2016 Australian Census online server is still causing problems for people wanting to log on. Picture: Adam Ward

An ABS spokesman on Tuesday said that it had collected about six million Census forms but the ABS stuck firm to its refusal to detail how many Australians have managed to successfully use the online Census collection website.

The website is up but many people continue to have problems accessing the site, with the advice from the ABS that people should try a different browser, try another device or give up on the technology and lodge a paper document.

Census Head Duncan Young has described the return of Census paper forms as “better than expected” although the ABS has declined to give details on what its expectation had been for the ratio of paper form versus online form submissions and how the split had played out in reality after the failure of the site on Census night.

For an organisation that exists for precision in statistics, the message from the ABS with one month of Census collection to go involves rubbery figures.

The ABS says there are “close to 10 million dwellings” in Australia and Census Head Duncan Young’s assertion that two-thirds have Census papers have been collected can be right only if the figures are rounded a certain way.

If there are 10 million households, then with about 6 million Census forms collected the ABS are not two thirds as Mr Young has said. Another explanation is that there are closer to 9 million households in Australia, rather than the 10 million the ABS has reported, or it has collected more than 6 million forms.

Australians have until September 23 to lodge their census forms.

The government’s cyber security adviser Mr Alistair MacGibbon is conducting a review of the failure of the $9 million IBM-built census system.