[LINK] Census: OAIC's Vacuous Pseudo-Investigation Report

[Karl Schaffarczyk]

>
> On 12/08/16 13:25, David Boxall wrote:
> > On 12/08/2016 12:39 PM, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:
> >> ...
> >> How did those who completed the census early, including the Prime
> >> Minister, know where they would spend that night?
> >> ...
> > The lady who delivered my census form (yes, I got one hand-delivered)
> > told me that I could lodge at any time from then (the Saturday
> > preceding nominal census night). On TV that night or soon after, an
> > ABS representative commented that more than 100,000 lodgements had
> > already been processed. Lodgement will be accepted up to (I think) 13
> > September.
>
> What does lodgement mean? Is that return of the form ie receipt by the
> census office?
>
> Odd suggesting to people filling out the paper form that they could do
> it ahead of time. The letter to householders informed us Census Night
> was August 9.
>
> What is the correct advice? At what point could the online form be
> completed?


>From what little I know, the ABS use a much softer approach. Despite the
fact that they can compel people to complete their surveys, they're happy
with compliance even when the temporal component is not complied with. In
previous years where online keys were delivered in envelopes by census
collectors who came and banged on every door, the census could always be
completed from the time you had the envelope in your hand.

As for the paper forms, who knows when any of them are complete? I agree,
filling them out ahead of time may give skewed results eg a person may go
to hospital or even die between completing the form and census night. I
recall instructions on a paper form from years ago which specified 7pm on
census night as the cut-off time - so if babies were born after, or people
died before, then they weren't to be counted.



Karl