Caitlin Cassidy
Remember last August; you probably remember filling out the Census alongside millions of other Australians.
The first and biggest release of this year’s Census is out today. It’s the first time since 2016 that Australians will have up-to-date data on where we live, who we are, and what we do. It’s a mammoth task to wade through and takes months to collate.
The 2021 census was completed during the Covid-19 pandemic when many Australians were in lockdown and working from home, and overseas migration had largely halted.
Questions were asked about two new topics – long-term health conditions and service in the Australian defense force.
It’s also the first time “non-binary” was offered as an option to report a person’s gender.
The question directly feeds into the official estimates of Australia’s population, making it one of the questionnaire’s most important questions.
While it should provide a more accurate snapshot of Australia’s LGBTQ+ community than in the past, when “other” was the only option apart from male or female, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has been criticized for neglecting to provide additional categories for people who are transgender or intersex.
An official count won’t be published in the first release. An ABS spokesperson said in a statement:
Later this year, the ABS will be doing more analysis on non-binary sex responses and … working in consultation with key stakeholders in the LGBTQ+ community to understand the data’s complexities, quality, and usefulness.
Currently, the ABS will publish our findings and look ahead to the next Census.
Most topics will be released on Tuesday. Almost all geographic data will be published, as will the answers to questions about ancestry, religion, unpaid work, income, birthrates, family relationship makeups, and residence details.
In October, the answers to employment questions will be released, while in early to mid-2023, the ABS will release “complex topics” that require additional processing, including socioeconomic indexes and homelessness estimates.
Updated at 17.56 EDT
Victoria records 11 deaths from Covid-19, with 468 people in hospital
There were 7,758 new cases recorded and 35 people in intensive care over the past 24 hours.
NSW records 40 deaths from Covid-19, with 1,540 people in hospital
There were 8,623 cases recorded over the past 24 hours, and 49 people are in intensive care.
COVID-19 update – Tuesday, June 28, 2022
In the 24-hour reporting period to 4 pm yesterday:
– 96.6% of people aged 16+ have had one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine – 95.1% of people aged 16+ have had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine pic.twitter.com/vioGMLUxht
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) June 27, 2022
On those deaths, NSW Health said:
The 40 deaths notified to NSW Health in the 24 hours to 4 pm on Monday include 26 deaths reported through the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages.
COVID-19-related deaths are notified to NSW Health from a range of sources, and not all deaths reported by NSW Health occurred in the week in which they are written, as there is sometimes a delay between an end arising and it is notified to NSW Health.
1m vacant dwellings in a country struggling with chronic housing insecurity and a rental crisis. Good times.
Updated at 19.08 EDT
This is unconfirmed as yet but likely to be from today’s Blockade Australia action in Sydney.
Several protesters have been arrested by officers attached to Strike Force Guard and taken to Surry Hills Police Station, where charges are anticipated.
The incident has been resolved, and the site is now cleared. https://t.co/KSu7RhAmDZ
— NSW Police Force (@nswpolice) June 27, 2022
The climate activist group released a statement about half an hour ago, confirming they had continued their actions today.
Christianity continues to decline in followers; Census shows
The Census shows that Christianity remains the country’s most common religion, AAP reports, with 43.9% of Australians identifying as Christian. But the number of followers continues to decline, dropping from 61.1% in 2011 to 52.1% in 2016.
Catholicism is the largest denomination, followed by Anglicanism. Other religions are growing: Hinduism was listed by 2.75% of respondents, and Islam increased to 3.2%.
And close to 40% (38.9) have no religious affiliation, up from 22.3% in 2011 and 30.1% in 2016.
AAP points out that religion is among the few voluntary questions in the Census; however, 93% of respondents still answered.
Updated at 18.58 EDT
Women more likely to report long-term health conditions
Some 8 million people were said to have a long-term health condition in the 2021 census, and 2 million were suffering from mental health problems, arthritis, or asthma, AAP reports.
Women are more likely to report having a long-term health condition, with 34% suffering at least one, compared with 30% of men.
Mental illness is one of the most commonly reported conditions, while women more widely reported arthritis and men asthma.
Almost 63% of people over 65 reported at least one long-term health condition, compared with 22% of those aged 15 to 34.
More than 2.2 million Australians experience long-term mental health issues; more than 2.1m live with arthritis, and just over 2m live with asthma. Australians under 14 were the most likely to have asthma.
Updated at 18.52 EDT
Millennials are taking over: it’s official.
Australia’s millennial generation is becoming the nation’s largest, displacing the postwar baby boomers, Census data shows.
Both demographic groups comprise 5.4 million people, but the 2021 statistics reflect a diminishing number of “boomers” compared with the 2016 survey.
Defined as the generation of people born between 1946 and 1964, the number of baby boomers fell from 25.4% to 21.5% of the population between 2016 and 2021.
Between 1981 and 1996, millennials increased from 20.4% to 21.5%.
In 1966, baby boomers made up nearly 40% of all Australians.
Updated at 18.33 EDT
A growing number of Australians identify as Indigenous, Census data shows
Eight hundred twelve thousand seven hundred twenty-eight people identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander in Australia, equal to 3.2% of the population, reflecting an increase of more than 25% since census data was last collected in 2016.
Nearly 48,000 are 65 years and older, more than double those in the 2011 census.
The statistics also report for the first time on the number of Indigenous Australians who have served in the defense force. More than 3,000 serving members identify as Indigenous, totaling 3.7%. Eleven thousand former ADF members have Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage.
Language remains important in many Indigenous households, with more than 78,000 people speaking the traditional language at home.
Of the 167 traditional languages spoken at home in 2021, the most widely reported were Arnhem Land and Daly River region languages, Torres Strait Island languages, Western Desert languages, Yolngu Matha and Arandic.
Of the Indigenous population, 91.4% identified as Aboriginal, 4.2% identified as Torres Strait Islanders, and 4.4% identified as both.
We’ll get into the nitty-gritty of the census data over the day, but here are some fast facts:
The national population in 2021 grew by about 2 million people since the last Census in 2016 to 25.4 million.
Due to the impacts of the pandemic, 2 million more people were at home on census night in 2021 compared to 2016. Of those who completed the Census, 96% did so at their address.
Covid led to an 80% decrease in overseas visitors, with 61,860 in 2021 compared with more than 315,000 in 2016.
More than a million new migrants have arrived in Australia since 2017, according to the Census, but about 80% of them came before the pandemic.
Updated at 18.22 EDT
Blockade Australia protests are set to continue today.
Activists protesting climate inaction by blocking Sydney streets this week plan to continue, even as ten protesters were arrested on Monday, including a 22-year-old woman who chained herself to the steering wheel of her car at the entrance to the Sydney Harbour Tunnel.
Blockade Australia spokesman Jonah Shabtay told AAP the protests were designed to demonstrate the effects of the collapse of the climate:
[The protests are] really for making it quite known and unavoidable that disruption will come from climate collapse, for which Sydney’s economy is largely responsible. To respond to that, we’re choosing to disrupt the city.
Shabtay said the group had moved away from its previous tactic of targeting ports and was focusing on roads in Sydney’s CBD:
It’s essentially going to be traffic disruptions that we’ll see throughout the week.
A Blockade Australia car parked across the southbound entrance of the Sydney Harbour Tunnel yesterday. Photograph: 9 News
The NSW police minister, Paul Toole, has labeled them “professional pests”. Speaking to Nine on Tuesday, Toole said:
I’m furious. The public is angry. These people say they are out there trying to protect the climate, but yesterday, they littered all over Sydney. These are professional pests.
Seven of the activists were refused bail. They face multiple obstruction and disruption charges and will appear in court on Tuesday.
Updated at 18.09 EDT
Federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek says Australia has had a “fantastic” reception at the UN Ocean Conference in Portugal, which she addressed yesterday, heralding the announcement of five new “blue carbon” projects this week.
She was asked her opinion of the Blockade Australia climate crisis protests in New South Wales this week and the widely criticized, very punitive anti-protest legislation that came into force in that state earlier this year.
Plibersek said she understood people felt strongly about the climate crisis but that they needed to obey the law:
I support the right to protest. I think people need to protest within the bounds of the law … I have been part of organizing a lot of rallies in my life, and it was always pretty standard practice to negotiate with police on the route of the march …
You have a right to make your views known; you don’t have the right to break the law to do that.
She also spoke briefly about abortion rights in Australia, in the wake of those rights being rolled back in the United States, saying it was important for the government to be supporting “the full suite reproductive health [measures] for Australian women”, including sex education, contraception, and safe, legal abortion.
Updated at 18.00 EDT
2021 census: the first wave of data was released today
Caitlin Cassidy
Cast your mind back to last August, and you pr; remember filling out the Census alongside millions of other Australians.
The first and biggest release of this year’s Census is out today. It’s the first time since 2016 that Australians will have up-to-date data on where we live, who we are, and what we do. It’s a mammoth task to wade through and takes months to collate.
The 2021 census was completed during the Covid-19 pandemic when many Australians were in lockdown and working from home, and overseas migration had largely halted.
Questions were asked about two new topics – long-term health conditions and service in the Australian defense force.
It’s also the first time “non-binary” was offered as an option to report a person’s gender.
The question directly feeds into the official estimates of Australia’s population, making it one of the questionnaire’s most important questions.
While it should provide a more accurate snapshot of Australia’s LGBTQ+ community than in the past, when “other” was the only option apart from male or female, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has been criticized for neglecting to provide additional categories for people who are transgender or intersex.
An official count won’t be published in the first release. An ABS spokesperson said in a statement:
Later this year, the ABS will be doing more analysis on non-binary sex responses and … working in consultation with key stakeholders in the LGBTQ+ community to understand the data’s complexities, quality, and usefulness.
Currently, the ABS will publish our findings and look ahead to the next Census.
Most topics will be released on Tuesday. Almost all geographic data will be published, as will the answers to questions about ancestry, religion, unpaid work, income, birthrates, family relationship makeups, and residence details.
In October, the answers to employment questions will be released, while in early to mid-2023, the ABS will release “complex topics” that require additional processing, including socioeconomic indexes and homelessness estimates.
Updated at 17.56 EDT
Good morning
Good morning, folks; welcome to this chilly Tuesday.
Prime minister Anthony Albanese is in Madrid, Spain, for the Nato summit, focusing on the Russian war on Ukraine and its relationship with China.
Albanese confirmed on landing that he had also spoken with the Solomon Islands prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare, and had a “very constructive” conversation. We’ll hear more about both of those things over the day.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released the first tranche of data from the 2021 census. It covers housing, languages spoken, Indigenous health and education, employment, religion, and paid and unpaid work. We’ve got stacks of analysis on that to bring you this morning.
Industrial action will sweep New South Wales this week, beginning with the Rail, Tram, and Bus Union who are kicking off today with a “go-slow”, which means train drivers will limit their speeds to 60km/h or under, likely reducing services up to 50% in peak times. It’s the first of four days of rolling action against what they say are unsafe trains.
Nurses and midwives will also take action this week, with a planned walk-off for between one and 24 hours on Tuesday and a mass meeting held in Sydney’s CBD from 2 pm. It will be the second time they have gone on strike in recent months.
We’ve got heaps more to bring you over the day. If you see something newsworthy or interesting over the day, email me at [email protected] or ping me on Twitter @gingerandhoney.
