2026 Census topic consultation - Phase two

It is absolutely essential for my advocacy work around urban planning and transport reform to be able to 1) generate crosstabs with motor vehicle ownership and other Census variables (e.g. number of persons resident in dwelling, number of bedrooms in dwelling, household income) and 2) obtain this vehicle ownership data down to SA1 granularity and across all other ASGS geographical classifications.

As far as I am aware, BITRE and state/territory sources don't provide this (at least not in a way easily accessible to the public), and as such the removal of this question would be a huge loss of valuable information.

Another issue with vehicle registration data is that registrations are often not reflective of the actual garaging location of the vehicle. For example, anecdotally I find it's relatively common within many families for a child who has moved away from home (e.g. for study) to take a family vehicle with them while keeping the registration in the name of, and at the address of, the parents. As an ACT resident, I note that it is common among interstate migrants in Canberra to keep vehicles registered in their previous jurisdiction for a number of years after migrating in order to avoid the costs involved with obtaining a vehicle inspection and re-registering the vehicle - there is typically little benefit in transferring registration promptly, and enforcement of registration requirements is very lax. While better access to more detailed administrative data would be very helpful, I still see significant value in obtaining a Census snapshot of vehicle usage to address some of these deficiencies in the data.

I wouldn't be able to have an effective picture of how car ownership rates vary across different suburbs/districts/cities, or the socioeconomic implications of private vehicle transport versus other modes. This would significantly harm my ability to use accurate analysis in the various submissions I make to state/territory and federal government organisations on planning and transport issues. In particular, the spatial distribution of cars in residential areas is highly relevant to parking policy, which has important flow-on impacts on land use planning and transport planning and is a topic of active interest to the community broadly and to local government/planning professionals and advocates in particular.

I used this variable just yesterday to generate statistics for a parliamentary submission I'm currently working on, looking at how transport options impact homeowners compared to renters.

I've been speaking to others who are involved with planning and transport advocacy who are also concerned about the proposed removal.

Personal interest. Also can be helpful in planning and transport advocacy work to identify areas with strong multicultural communities, although I don't presently use the data for that purpose.

No-one quite knows what "Australian" ancestry means.

I'd be able to tick a couple more boxes - currently I choose "Australian" and "Chinese", but perhaps I could indicate my European ancestral background in more detail.

As an Australian of mixed (English, Irish, Chinese-Malaysian) ethnic and ancestral background, I appreciate that the ABS is considering expanding ancestry and ethnicity options, however it is a very complex question and the extraordinarily diverse nature of the Australian population makes it difficult to balance competing needs in collecting this data.

As a church member, I find the religious affiliation data tends to reflect broad cultural affiliations rather than other factors such as membership of a church, attendance at services, etc. This is still quite useful to track, as it indicates changes to attitudes around religion in society, but must be supplemented by data from private surveys such as the National Church Life Survey.

Positives - would likely provide data that is more aligned with people who are practising members of churches or other religious organisations. Negatives - would lose some visibility into the broader cultural affiliations that have traditionally been measured by the existing question.

Dwelling occupancy status is critically important for getting an accurate picture of residential vacancy rates.

Mode of travel to educational institution is useful data for transport planning and analysis.

Income - I like the thinking behind switching this to administrative data, but I'm highly concerned that this transition will result in data quality issues that we're not aware of yet. Please try not to stuff it up!