Conspiracy theorists are in a lather about how to respond to the 2021 census: should they object to having their details recorded, use it to make a political statement, or dutifully fill it out to protect their country against paranoid fears?
It is compulsory to complete the census. There are fines for those people who fail to complete it or provide false or misleading statements. Failing to fill it out means government departments and agencies may underfund services and infrastructure because they underestimate the number of Australians who need them.
Despite the consequences, anti-vaxxers, sovereign citizens, the far right, QAnon believers and other anti-government conspiracy theorists have spent weeks debating about the best way to subvert the census — or not.
Sceptical of authority, these groups believe the census is an insidious method of authoritarian mass surveillance rather than an ordinary form of data collection used to inform government decision-making.
The most popular response has been to conscientiously object by returning envelopes containing a physical copy of the census to sender.
One popular image of an envelope defaced with “The census is now cancelled until you stop playing games with our lives” has been shared hundreds of times on Facebook, including by pages like the former senator Rod Culleton’s Great Australian Party, and by prominent conspiracy theorists such as Karen Brewer.
One QAnon believer suggested writing a colourful note on the envelope: “how about we all write on the census in capital letters WE THE PEOPLE YOUR MASTERS, ARE AWARE THE GOVERNMENT AND ALL ITS DEPARTMENTS AND THE MEDIA HAVE BEEN INFILTRATED BY SATANIC PEDOPHILES, EXPECT US WE ARE COMING FOR YOU.”
Ironically, some argue this action will help their political cause rather than ensure that they are underrepresented. “This is a brilliant way to protest for all Australians. Our voices will be heard by doing this,” one user wrote.
They’re not worried about the fines either. In Telegram channels and Facebook pages dedicated to conspiracy theories, they falsely claim they can’t be punished for failing to fill out the forms because envelopes are addressed to “the resident” and not their actual names.
Others have seized on the opportunity to use the census as a platform. Some anti-vaxxers are trying to organise others to claim their religion or gender as “unvaccinated”, pointing to past social campaigns to get people to declare their religion as “Jedi”.
“On the census we must put our religion as ‘unvaccinated’ if we get 10,000 people we can get across,” one person wrote in a popular anti-vaccine Telegram channel.
Meanwhile, older conspiracy theories have begun to recirculate. In 2016 a scare campaign run by racists and other right-wing groups claimed Australia would soon be “officially be declared to be a Muslim country” if respondents didn’t claim they were Christian. This same meme has been reheated this year, with far-right groups trying to coordinate their members — who loathe to interact with government in any way — to fill out the forms as Christians.
Despite the excitement, there’s nothing to suggest there is a significant movement that will undermine the census. In 2016, the response rate was 94.8%, similar to the two prior.
‘….an ordinary form of data collection used to inform government decision-making.’
If only that were true. Surely decisions on where to spend money on ‘services and infrastructure…(for) the number of Australians who need them’ are based on marginal seats. We already have evidence!
Yes zut, all they need is Bridget and Tudgie’s spreadsheets to know where to spend our money.
I dreamed a dream: how peachy it would be if on receiving “no one here but us chickens” response from
I Vaucluse Alley Vaucluse the Census Brigade was authorised to move in and demolish the hovel or convert it to
housing for the needy…Worked for ABS in the 60s in WA love you guys: bless
Personally, more widely spreading the QAnon creed via census conscientious objection doesn’t give credibility to them as right-of-centre freedom lovers, but shines a light on them as creepy and dangerous society-destroying anarchists. Maybe “bring it on” – it could kill their movement off.
“Failing to fill it out means government departments and agencies may underfund services and infrastructure”
Nothing new there – government provision of anything at all is just about considered a crime by the current scurvy crew running the ship of state. Gutting services has been going on for decades due to the prevailing neoliberal ideology. The negative effect on government service provision of incorrectly completing the census would be the the equivalent of a fart in a Friedmanite cyclone.
There is no end to their fear, their impotence, their remote and endless thought loops forming ever tighter balls of stupidity. Sure guys, do your worst. What a bunch of putzes.