All that being said, at least the Number Crunchers, at least, have something to go on. If a Census wasn't held then no one would know what was going on anywhere.

I do believe that the Government of the Day misses a great opportunity to gather more information on what the people of Australia really think about issues affecting them.

Eg, Marriage Equality, Abortion, Immigration, Climate Change, & a myriad of other taboo topics.

These could be added to the Census form at very little extra cost. An extra sheet of paper & everyone in Australia will have had a say. Just think of the benefit that would provide the Ministers in forming legislation. Think of it this way, A cheap Plebiscite covering a multitude of subjects.

It's a missed opportunity.

I tend to disagree with the Author on this one.
That said, some of this may have been used to justify the removal of amenity and services like rail from the bush, arguably depopulated by city centric policy paradigms and the numbskull ideologues, who created them!
Alan B.

It certainly wasn't census data that they used to justify removal of rail services from the bush. But the census includes a journey to work question, which is very useful for transport service provision.

Other parts of the census are less useful, but still have a lot of value in dispelling myths. For instance it's census data that tells us only 2% of the population are Muslims, and that we're not "getting swamped by Asians".

Excellent point about hospitals.

Hospitals cannot be picked up and moved to where the demand will be, so they need to be accessible.

Take for example the Northern Hospital in Epping Victoria, a small hospital in a hotspot for growth, so demand far exceeds the ability of that hospital to meet those demands.

Or for example the Canberra Hospital, which is a major tertiary teaching hospital. The population of the ACT was roughly 250,000 but the catchment area of that hospital exceeds 500,000.

Then we have the different age demographics. Retirees living down the coast, with a younger but gradually ageing ACT population. Tuggernong in the ACT was once known as nappy valley, but now those that were once in nappies have graduated to cars and jobs.

Governments tend to ignore issues that are not trendy to them, If we had our current governments 5 decades ago, we would still be in the stone age.

Of course it will be useful! I'm not going to bother reading this.

The purpose of the census is to remind us that Big Brother is watching and keep us under his thumb. The rest are but transparent pretexts.