Documents relating to correspondence between the ABS and Senator Dean Smith on the topic of the Census between 1 June 2026 and 6 August 2026

Written by Claude Haiku 5.5 from the extracted text on 20 Oct 2026. It can miss or misread redacted and scanned pages. Check the source before relying on it.

This FOI release comprises internal ABS email chains, a letter of 5 August 2026 from Senator Dean Smith to Australian Statistician Dr David Gruen, and the ABS response dated 7 August 2026. Senator Smith raised concerns about the "Census – Not religious? Mark no religion" campaign run by the Rationalist Society of Australia and the National Secular Lobby, and asked nine questions on the integrity of the 2026 Census religion question. The ABS response confirms awareness of the campaign, states that the religion question asks for religious affiliation rather than practice, and notes that the ABS issued public guidance on 6 August asking people to answer according to their own beliefs. It also says the ABS has not sought legal advice, has alerted the Minister, and monitors misinformation through established protocols. The release contains no census sample sizes, costs or privacy-linkage data.