A senator asked the Australian Bureau of Statistics whether it thought a community campaign encouraging people to mark ‘No religion’ if they were not religious was “lawful”  and “risked the integrity” of the Census just days before the national data-collection exercise was held, documents reveal.

Documents obtained by the Rationalist Society of Australia under freedom of information (FOI) laws also show that Liberal Senator Dean Smith, in a letter sent to the ABS in early August this year, questioned whether the agency had “sought additional legislative powers” to protect the Census “from organised attempts to influence responses”.

In the 5 August letter – titled ‘Matters Concerning the Integrity of the 2026 Census’ – Senator Smith told the head of the ABS, David Gruen, that he was writing in regards to media reports about the ‘Census – Not Religious?’ campaign (see letter below).

The campaign was supported by the Rationalist Society Australia and several other pro-secular organisations and its messages reached millions of Australians in the weeks leading up to Census day on 11 August.

Download the full letter here (PDF)

Senator Smith said that, according to media reports, an online questionnaire used by the campaign recommended that participants, depending on their responses, “either record ‘No religion’ or use another category when completing the Census”.

“… I am concerned that organised campaigns encouraging Australians to answer the religion question in a particular way may have the potential to compromise the integrity of the Census, undermine public confidence in its results, and facilitate an inaccurate use of Census data in future policy and planning decisions,” he wrote.

“Maintaining confidence that Census data represents Australians’ genuine response, rather than responses shaped by organised advocacy campaigns, is essential to preserving its credibility and value.”

Among a list of nine questions put to Dr Gruen, Senator Smith asked whether the ABS considered it appropriate for organisations to conduct such campaigns and whether it had assessed that such activity could undermine the accuracy and integrity of Census data.

Senator Smith also questioned whether the ABS would issue public guidance to remind Australians to “reflect their own circumstances and beliefs, rather than recommendations made by third-party advocacy groups”, and raised concerns about the lawfulness of the campaign.

“Has the ABS taken steps to satisfy itself that this campaign is lawful and categorically does not risk the integrity of the Census?” he wrote.

“Has the ABS raised this issue with the Australian Government or the responsible Minister, or sought additional legislative powers or other measures to better protect the integrity, credibility and independence of the Census from organised attempts to influence responses?”

On 6 August, the ABS issued a statement saying it was “aware of campaigns aimed at influencing individuals’ responses” and encouraging people to answer the religion question accurately and according to their own beliefs.

The ‘Census – Not Religious?’ campaign welcomed the statement, given that its central message was that people should reflect their authentic selves when answering the religion question.

The campaign also said that the quiz was entirely consistent with the campaign’s positioning – in that it encouraged people to reflect on their relationship with religion and, if they were not religious, or no longer religious, to mark ‘No religion’.

The campaign had urged Australians to answer the religion question honestly so as to help deliver more accurate data to counter the impact of the leading question used in the Census.

In late 2024, the ABS decided to re-use the existing wording – ‘What is the person’s religion?’ – that, as robust several other polls show, undercounts the non-religious population by about 10 percentage points.

In late 2023, after two rounds of public consultation found overwhelming support for removing the bias from the religion question, the ABS proposed changing it to ‘Does the person have a religion?’ in order to “support more accurate data collection”. 

But, in early 2024, religious lobbyists demanded Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the government to directly intervene and “reverse” the proposed changes. Then, in August 2024, after the Albanese government missed several deadlines, the ABS cancelled its major household test – a test that had been viewed as critical to assessing the performance of the proposed new religion question.

Weeks later, the ABS was forced to revert to the existing religion question because it did not have enough data about the proposed new question and later justified the decision on the grounds that re-using the existing question design would produce comparable data with previous Censuses – despite the ABS having, internally, rejected the arguments by religious lobbyists’ for comparability.

Documents previously obtained by the RSA under FOI show that, in early 2024, the ABS gave Senator Smith a private briefing about the problematic nature of the existing Census question’s design.

In May 2024, Senator Smith had sought a meeting with the ABS to discuss the proposed changes to the religion question after the Catholic Church publicly called for the government to intervene. As opposition spokesperson for ABS matters, he told the ABS that several members of parliament had contacted him following media reports in The Australian about the church’s concerns.

ABS slides presented to Senator Smith made it clear that there had been “inaccurate reporting” about the proposed changes and also highlighted the problem of the leading nature of the existing question (see below).

“‘Does this assume that a person has a religion?’” says a text box with an arrow pointing to the existing question, ‘What is the person’s religion?’.

The slide adds:  “Other questions ask ‘Does the person use a language other than English at home?’ not ‘What language other than English does the person use at home?’”

The RSA has urged members of the federal parliament and minor parties to help safeguard the integrity of the ABS process of developing and testing questions for future censuses, stating there was a public perception of political interference in the ABS process in 2024.

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

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

Image: Senator Dean Smith (Facebook)