The Rationalist Society of Australia is urging delegates at the Labor Party’s national conference this week to make changes to the policy platform to support collecting “accurate” data about population demographics, including on religion.

The party’s draft policy being presented to the conference includes a statement that Labor believes in collecting “reliable data collection”, including in regards to religious backgrounds, to inform “good and effective policy”.

However, this year’s Census is again using a leading question about religious affiliation that significantly undercounts Australia’s non-religious population by more that 10 percentage points and inflates the religion result.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) decided to re-use the leading question after Catholic bishops directly lobbied Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in 2024 to “reverse” the agency’s proposed changes to the question design, and after the government then missed multiple deadlines ahead of a critical test.

The ABS had proposed changing the question from ‘What is your religion?’ to ‘Do you have a religion?’ in order to “support more accurate data collection”.

In chapter 5 of Labor’s draft policy platform, the document says the party will “work with experts and the community to collect reliable data on all population demographics, to ensure services can meet need and demand.”

Speaking today, Si Gladman, Executive Director of the Rationalist Society of Australia, called for Labor Party delegates to amend the draft policy to refer to “accurate and reliable” data collection.

“The Census religion question is ‘reliable’ in that it produces a measure of religious affiliation that can be compared with the data collected at past Censuses. But the data is inaccurate, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics also agrees,” he said.

“The leading nature of the question produces data that the Catholic bishops and religious lobbyists wanted, but it fails to deliver a true reflection of religious affiliation and non-religious affiliation in Australia.

“The Labor Party should have a stated commitment to collecting data that is also accurate.”

An Essential Research survey commissioned by the Census – Not Religious? campaign – supported by the Rationalist Society of Australia – tested the question design that the ABS had proposed adopted against the design being re-used for the Census and found that the latter resulted in undercounting the non-religious population by 10.4 percentage points.

Earlier this month, The Guardian reported on the survey results, noting that more than half the population would be not religious if the Census used the non-leading question.

Mr Gladman said the Rationalist Society of Australia would, following the Census, be advocating to governments at all levels and other major data users not to use the ABS data as a measure of religious and non-religious affiliation.

Labor’s draft policy platform for this week’s conference in Adelaide includes explicit support for “secular” public education.

In 2023, delegates re-inserted a commitment to “secular” public education after vocal advocacy by the Rationalist Society of Australia and lobbying by individuals and others across the country.

The RSA is supporting the ‘Census – Not Religious?’ campaign, which is encouraging Australians to mark ‘No religion’ if they are not religious at the 2026 Census.   

See all of the RSA’s reporting about the Census question here.

If you want to support our work, please make a donation or become a member.

Si Gladman is Executive Director of the Rationalist Society of Australia. He also hosts ‘The Secular Agenda’ podcast.

Photo by Rafael AS Martins on Unsplash.