Excellent informative article!

It would also be appropriate to have a box called "Private".

History has shown us (Spanish Inquisition, Nazi Germany) that the state holding information on your religion can be somewhat dangerous.

Perfectly reasonable for any of us to reserve the right not to disclose what for many of us is a very personal aspect of our lives.

The fundamental purpose of the census is pragmatic: by asking your religion it aims to find out, in effect, how many blocks of land need to be set aside for churches in new housing developments, and how much car parking there should be around them.

Using census results for propagandising about the growth or shrinkage of any particular religion is fine, as long as we confine ourselves to comparisons between census results from different years. But any attempt to extrapolate from census figures to claims about how Australians are actually going to behave right now is going to end in disappointment.

Herbert, completely agree - I have seen comments on the ABC DRUM site, calling for identification of all "deniers", so that at some stage, they can take revenge on these people for "destroying the world".

I can imagine what would happen if the Greens had control of census information, or the ability to write in their own questions.

The current political climate in Australia makes me feel less safe now than I have ever felt in this country before.

I wonder how many people feel the same and may not even want to reflect any information to the state at all, since they clearly do not seem to have my best intentions at heart and are merely acting in the Green's best interests so that they can stay in power.

A very worthwhile and timely article that should make the more thoughtful among the readers understand that, by identifying themselves as 'christians', people are actually committing themselves to belief in a load of mystical medieval twaddle. On such contrived statistics do the various churches claim the right to educate children largely at public expense, enjoy a disproportionate share of the charity budget, and avoid taxation - to say nothing of enjoying a seemingly general amnesty with regard to on-going child abuse.
Think before you fill in the census form.

GYM-FISH, be sure not to let the facts get in the way of a good rant...