Australian Atheists Forum

The campaign to have the question changed comprises the Rationalist Society of Australia, the Atheist Foundation of Australia, the Sydney Atheists, Humanists Australia, the National Secular Lobby and Humanists Victoria.

Last week the campaign wrote to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Andrew Leigh — the assistant minister with responsibility for the ABS — to stress the Catholic Church’s concerns were misplaced and would work against the interests of all users of census results.

“Please do not undermine their expertise by allowing political interference in the census process,” said the letter signed by Michael Dove, chair of the Census21 Group.

Dove told Crikey the census data was seen by many organisations, not least of which the government, as the “gold standard of evidence” for allocating funding to determine policy. But he said the current question leads many people to talk about their cultural background rather than what religion they align with.

It was in the interests of bishops and the church that the “cultural Catholics get counted so the Catholic Church can overstate its relevance, and continue to enjoy the privileged funding, policy, and media access benefits”, he said.

“There’s an awful lot of religious privilege that flows from the census stage and that needs to be changed.