Premier’s department supports changing religion question

The Victorian Premier’s own department believes the proposed changes to the Census religion question will have a positive impact in fostering greater inclusion of non-religious people.

As part of phase 2 of the Australia Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) 2026 Census topic consultation, the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet identified the “assumption of religiosity” as a problem in the existing question.

When asked to describe possible positive impacts of introducing a two-part question, the department said:

“A two-part question will remove the assumption of religiosity and will foster wider inclusion of people who are not religious from the outset, while retaining critical data needs about Australia’s religious communities.”

The consultation process demonstrated overwhelming public support for changing the religion question.

The ABS is proposing to replace the existing question, “What is your religion?”, with, “Does the person have a religion?”. If a respondent answers ‘Yes,’ then they can specify their religion in the boxes provided.

On its website, the ABS has published 172 responses across all Census topics. Of these, 74 specifically related to the proposed change to the religion question, with the vast majority – 63 – supportive of the change and eight partly supportive.

In a submission to the consultation process in August 2023, the ‘Census21 – Not Religious?’ coalition strongly supported the proposal to introduce a two-part question for religion in the 2026 Census. The submission said the change would remove inherent bias in the religion question and help ensure more accurate and meaningful data on religion.

The Department of Premier and Cabinet said Islamophobia, antisemitism and other forms of discrimination and vilification on the basis of religion could be more effectively addressed with accurate information.

Asked to also consider possible negative impacts of changing the question, the department said the two-part question may result in some respondents only completing one of the two questions, leading to incomplete responses and data that cannot be compared with previous censuses.

“Reduced responses about religion may reduce data integrity and thus adversely affect the capacity of policy makers and services providers to develop suitably targeted services to communities,” the submission said.

In October, the ABS confirmed it would be going ahead with testing the newly formulated religion question for the 2026 Census.

The Catholic Church has been pressuring the Albanese government to block changes to the religion question.

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