[DM] "On the potential demise of the quinquennial census of Australia"

[rfmcdonald]

At Demography Matters I link to The Guardian's Oliver Milman reported last month that the Australian Bureau of Statistics might reduce the frequency of national census-taking. At present, an Australian census is held every five years, the most recent being in 2011. The plan to shift to a ten-year census cycle, with frequent surveys in between censuses to maintain data, is apparently quite controversial, for the same sort of reasons that I recognize in Canada in the debate over the long-form census. I do admit to wondering if a five-year census is practical, but I also admit to envying Australia its thorough data-collection processes.