What was claimed
Australians have to complete 21 pages of questions about household members who are away on census night.
Our verdict
False. Only one page asks detailed questions about people who usually reside at a property but aren't there on census night.
AAP FACTCHECK - Australians don't need to fill in the entire census for residents who aren't staying at their home on census night, despite claims circulating on social media.
Only one page of the 2026 national survey asks for information about people who usually reside at a residence but aren't present on census night.
People are asked to fill in the form allocated to the address where they are staying on census night, whether that is their usual place of residence or somewhere else.
The false claims were made in a widely shared Facebook video posted on July 31 that features a woman speaking about the 2026 census, which takes place on August 11.
”There are 21 pages to fill in for everybody who’s in your house that night," the woman in the video says (timestamp 49 seconds).
"And you have to fill in that many pages for those who normally live in your house, but aren’t there that night.”
That is incorrect. The entire 2026 census is 26 pages and includes 66 primary questions for each household, as detailed in a sample form published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Only four of those questions ask for information about someone who usually resides at the residence but is not there on census night (questions four, five, 58 and 59).
Questions four and 58 require only a single mark from a list of options, while question five asks respondents to state how many people who usually live at the address are away on census night.
Question 59 includes six sub-questions about any householders who are absent, but only extends to a single page (page 24).
An ABS spokesperson told AAP FactCheck these questions seek only basic details about people who are away on census night, including their name, date of birth, sex at birth, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin and their student status.
The ABS directs Australians to fill in the census wherever they are staying on census night, meaning people don't need to fill in the entire form on behalf of people in their household who are staying at another address.
The same social media user posted another video on August 2 in which she claimed New Zealand has scrapped its own national census.
"I can't evidence the reason, but I can evidence the fact that New Zealand is no longer doing a census," the person says (timestamp 41 seconds).
While New Zealand's National coalition government introduced legislation in March 2026 to abandon the census, the bill does not have enough support in parliament to progress.
The bill was introduced after the NZ government endorsed StatsNZ's decision to move away from a traditional five-yearly national census in favour of a new smaller-scale annual survey of a subset of the population from 2030.
The 2028 census was subsequently cancelled, according to an RNZ report at the time.
But the move requires a law change that must achieve support from 75 per cent of parliament, according to a briefing on the proposal (page 1).
The NZ Labour Party has withdrawn its support for the bill, meaning it does not have the numbers to pass.
Under current NZ law, the 2028 national census is still scheduled to go ahead.
A select committee report on the bill, published on July 31, stated Labour was "not satisfied" the alternative methods would be accurate or reliable enough to justify the change (page 7).
Reports detailing Labour's opposition to the bill were published on August 3, a day after the Facebook video was posted.
New Zealand's statistics minister Scott Simpson said Stats NZ must now prepare to conduct a census in 2028 under current laws, according to a report by The Post.
However, funding to conduct the census has not yet been allocated, the report said.
The Facebook video goes on to claim Australia's census is a "waste of money" and mentions people experiencing homelessness.
"What about the homeless? The government doesn't care about them," she says (timestamp one minute).
A user in the comments says that if the census were delivered to each household, homeless Australians without an address would not be counted.
However, the ABS attempts to count people sleeping rough on census night.
Hotels, boarding houses and refuges are supplied with census papers to give to residents, while ABS staff also conduct face-to-face interviews with people sleeping rough to help them fill in the form, the ABS website states.
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