The strange history and problematic future of the Australian census

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THE STRANGE HISTORY AND PROBLEMATIC FUTURE OF THE AUSTRALIAN CENSUS Author(s): Terence H. Hull Source: Journal of Population Research, Vol. 24, No. 1 (March 2007), pp. 1-22Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41110876Accessed: 24-03-2015 21:34 UTC

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Vol 24, No. 1, 2007 Journal of Population Research

THE STRANGE HISTORY AND PROBLEMATIC FUTURE OF THE AUSTRALIAN CENSUS

Terence H. Hull,+ The Australian National University

When looking back into the first century of Australian history following white settlement we often rely on the records of musters, listings and censuses to provide information on individuals and communities. The first census of New South Wales in 1828 was little more than a directory of names of settlers and settlements, but both professional historians and genealogists regard it as invaluable. As the scientific principles of censuses were developed over the course of the nineteenth century the information collected became ever more important for social scientists and economists. In the twentieth century, professional historians in the UK and USA opened wholly new perspectives on society by looking to the census for records of common families who were not recorded in the newspapers or diaries of the time, and the community structures in which they lived. Unfortunately such innovations have not been possible in Australia. The individual records of most colonial and all Commonwealth censuses are not to be found in the libraries or archives. The destruction of original census records in Australia has been the result of misadventure and government policies re- flecting great fear about the impact of popular privacy concerns on public compliance with the census operations. This paper explores the history behind the anomalous practice of destroying census records in Australia, and poses questions about the role of the census in the writing of histories of Australian people and Australian communities.

Keywords: census, Australia, administration, government, genealogy, family history

When looking back into the first century of Australian history following white settlement we often rely on the records of musters, listings and censuses to provide information on individuals and communities. The first census of New South Wales in 1828 was little more than a directory of names of settlers and settlements, but both professional historians and genealogists regard it as an invaluable source of insight into the life of the young colony and its inhabitants. The dispossessed communities of Aborigines struggling to regain their land and their identities look to 'blanket musters' of the early 1800s to track down clan links with place, and gain insights into families who left little other record of their presence. For political scientists and social commentators the census provides documentation to help explain the development of a particular Australian culture and identity.

+ Address for correspondence: The Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia. E-mail: terry.hull@anu. edu.au.

7


2 Terence H. Hull

While those early censuses may be greatly valued by some in the community, there are also detractors who regard any such government listings as an intrusion on privacy. While not saying so in so many words, such critics appear to crave both contemporary and future anonymity, and at least a freedom from any record that is kept by government. This opposition to the preservation of individual census records has become a distinctive element of Australian government culture. Privacy groups and newspaper commentators treat the census as an icon of government intrusion, and at the extreme call for censuses to be stopped entirely. In response the Australian and State Bureaus of Statistics proclaim the total confidentiality of the census, describing how the individual records will be destroyed almost immediately after they have been processed. The only recent exception has been the compromise agreement in 2001 and 2006 that people will be able to request the preservation of their personal census records. The microfilms of these records are to be kept under lock and key and will only be made public after 100 years. Citizens of the UK, Canada and USA have complete access to the census records of their communities following a period of 100, 92 or 72 years, respectively. By contrast the embargo on sensitive Government Cabinet documents tends to be only 30 years, and in 2006 the United States Govern- ment announced the implementation of a Clinton era policy that secret documents would automatically lose their classified status after 25 years, unless agencies could argue that there was still a clear need to maintain the secrecy for specific documents (Shane 2006).

I want to argue that Australia's destruction of census records is both unnecessary as a means of respecting privacy and harmful to the establishment of a true national identity and a truly 'popular' history of the nation. This argument requires a review of the history of the Australian census, and an understanding of how die destruction of individual records came to be policy. It also needs a leap of imagination to consider what we have lost through the destruction of individual records in the census, and an affirmation of mutual respect to consider the ways in which our community can work to protect our future history through the full preservation of individual census records.

British census practice in Australia

From the outset, government census activities have been oriented toward very imme- diate practical concerns, and often these have provoked resistance from a populace that does not totally share government priorities. In the early colonial era Governors ordered regular counts of the population in the form of military style musters. At that time there was no concern about the Indigenous people even when they lived within sight of the colonists. Aborigines were not regarded as members of the new community the British established in Sydney Cove and hence were not part of the population (Briscoe and Smith 2002: 16-40). Instead only convicts, guards and settlers were ordered to present themselves to authorities to report their name, sex, age, status (convict, ticket-of-leave, other) and place of abode. Such simple lists were needed to monitor population numbers, to order provisions from the Home Country, and to set out farms for the new colony. As more free settlers joined the population there was increasing resistance to such government orders. If they were truly free, they argued, why should they front up like convicts? Gradually musters were replaced by censuses involving Enumerators and Collectors going from region to region to record


The Strange History and Problematic Future of the Australian Census 3

lists of communities and eventually house-to-house to collect forms completed by heads of household. Over the years the musters and censuses traced the growth of towns, the expansion of settlements, and the transformation of the population from a prison into a network of pastoral communities.

The 1828 Census, the first true census of the New South Wales Colony, lists one of my distant cousins as a resident of Sydney. To discover this I had to use the US and UK Census and birth records and family documents. In this way it is possible to make connections back to the small village of Wishaw near Glasgow in the mid 1700s. The family name is Dalziel. One of the sons, John, was said to have gone to Australia, but we knew nothing of how or why he made the move. Recently, when looking at the first census of New South Wales, the enumeration of 1828, I found the name John Dalziel, aged 29, who had arrived in 1826. John worked for William Newton as a law clerk in O'Connell Street Sydney. I cannot discover much about John Dalziel's descendants if I rely totally on Australian records, because most of the subsequent census records are not available (see Appendix 1 for review of census collections). However, that is the beauty of individual records. Each document has an intrinsic value. That value depends on the questions posed at the time, the accuracy of census officials and the care and diligence of the institutions charged with saving the records. For Australian census documents the intrinsic value of information increased over the course of the nineteenth century, but at various times and with various events was lost through the destruction of the forms.

The Australian colonies followed Britain in the development of methods of scientific census, with standardized questionnaires, collection procedures and tabulation methods. The counts handled some population groups differently. While they were not regarded as part of the official 'population', increasingly Aborigines with links to the colonies were promised provisions and so-called 'blanket' musters were held to list the names of recipients and eligible family members. Over the decades specific ethnic or national groups attracted special attention in the census activities. The collectors' books from the 1891 census were set out in columns that distinguished Chi- nese and Aborigines from the rest of the population. Such identification of the 'other' a century ago may offend our contemporary values of equality and fairness but it is today a major tool for social scientists trying to understand the history of disadvan- tage in Australian society.

By the end of the nineteenth century, Australia had undergone a total transformation. Pastoral expansion, the discovery of gold, and a steady stream of migration to establish colonies on the perimeter of the large island continent had created a brash and proud society. These developments were coincidental with the elaboration of Empire in the reign of Queen Victoria, and the efflorescence of industry and trade.

In Sydney the pride in material progress culminated in the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879-80, in the grand Garden Palace built in the Botanic Gardens off Macquarie Street, across from the present-day Mitchell Library. Once the visitors had gone home and the stands established to display the material possibilities of the age were knocked down, the government resolved to use the huge space for the public good, and within months the upper storeys were available for concerts, balls and public meetings, and the cavernous halls of the basements turned over to government offices.

These spaces offered a wonderful opportunity to store the large amounts of paper generated by the servants of the Queen. Copies of correspondence to the Home


4 Terence H. Hull

Country, reports on the economy, and all the household forms collected during the recent decennial censuses were carted into the halls. Like the government back in Britain, the New South Wales administration took the stacks of paper to be symbols of scientific government, and order and completeness were bywords.

At three a.m. on 22 September 1882 two senior constables discovered a fire in the lower levels of the complex. The stacks of paper and the wooden construction combined to create an inferno and produced total destruction within an hour. The 23 September edition of the Sydney Morning Herald recorded particular concern over the loss of the 1881 census materials. It noted that the census report was already over- due, and Mr John Byron, the compiler of the census report, had completed 'a large portion of the details of the work - embracing particulars concerning the national, educational, religious, and social and conjugal conditions of the people of various towns, and it was to have been placed in the hands of the Government Printer today' (Sydney Morning Herald 1882). The newspaper expressed a hope that some of the material might be recovered if enumerators had by chance kept duplicates of the census returns. So far as we know there were no such duplicate forms.

Ashes were all that remained of the New South Wales census of 1881 and indeed the same fate befell other materials stored in the building including the censuses of 1846, 1851, 1856, 1861, and 1871. Two points need to be made about this incident. First, the individual census records were being stored because the government intended to preserve them for posterity. Their destruction was totally accidental. Second, census records, unlike items of correspondence, copies of government reports, and records of official meetings, were unique. There was no possibility of retrieving the information of individual census records from the Home Office or other storage centres. The fire totally destroyed the individual records of half a century of census taking in the first and most populous Australian colony.

The loss of such a valuable set of documents occurred at a particularly sensitive time in the development of social statistics. Where the old musters had been seen as a very practical effort to gauge demand for food and clothing, by 1880 those planning censuses had a much broader and deeper agenda. Population structure was emerging as a primary issue for planning, and everything from the layout of towns to the construction of schools, hospitals and market places required information on the rate of growth and distribution of population. The Sydney Morning Herald's concern about the loss was divided between anger that a collection costing the huge sum of £24,000 could be destroyed so easily, and regret that towns would now 'never know what their actual growth was during the 10 years that have elapsed since the census was taken in 1871' (Sydney Morning Herald 1882). Their frustration also touched on an element of colonial pride. The 1881 enumeration was the first simultaneous census spanning the Empire (Coghlan 1894), and already New South Wales was later than the other Australian colonies in producing a census report. Now they would be known not only for tardiness, but also for carelessness.

While New South Wales had lost their census inadvertently, the same was not the case in Victoria. There in 1891 the Government Statist, Henry Hay ter, faced a terrible dilemma when police officers approached clerks in the census office to gain access to individual household schedules to assist in tracking down wanted crimi- nals. The clerks refused to relinquish the papers because of the penalties in the census act against any official who divulged personal information. Any breach of this regu- lation attracted a heavy fine of £20, and theoretically fines or imprisonment could be



imposed in respect of each individual form. Hayter, though fully aware of the impor- tance of keeping the original records for later analysis, particularly in the light of the disaster experienced in New South Wales, took the most cautious tack and requested permission to pulp all the original forms. The census of Victoria was duly destroyed (Castles 1991: 66-67).

Hayter also objected to the government's plan to use the census process to collect individual data on education to be used in the implementation of compulsory education. Under pressure to do so he arranged to have a separate card collected on school-aged children, and turned these over to the Department of Education for processing, thus keeping the information at arm's length from the census processing (Castles 1991: 66). For Hayter, and for many other government statisticians, there was a pressing need to separate the census from the processes of government administration, no matter how noble the justification. This became the touchstone in the debates on confidentiality.

Policies of Confidentiality Those of us struggling to cope with the technologies of the twenty-first century are often fascinated by the idea of family links to the early history of our nations. In Australia the concerns with ancestors have been notably mixed. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century discovery of convicts in the family tree produced extreme disquiet. Libraries kept convict musters under lock and key. Middle-class families craving respectability sought to ensure that the taint of convict background would not emerge in any record. However, as Castles has argued (1991: 6Z) Aere is no evidence of any politicians taking action to destroy census records as a way of covering up a convict ancestry. Indeed, convict ancestry was not a core element of any discussions of census privacy at the time of Federation. Instead the Federal Parliamentary debates centred on religion and proposals to collect information on income and wealth.

This is not to say that convict status had never affected the conduct of a census. In 1840 Governor George Gipps faced a revolt by three judges when he attempted to put a census act through the Legislative Council in preparation for the 1841 enumeration. The judges objected to having Collectors ask each person 'whether or not he had ever been transported' and this was said to be 'vexatious and degrading' (Gipps 1841: 1301). In his report to Secretary of State Lord John Russell1 of the Colo- nial Office, Gipps noted that the Act passed by the Legislative Council only required the head of each family to report the number of people in each class, whether free or bond, not 'touching the state or condition of any individual member of the family or household'. However, in order to placate the judges the Council added a clause to forbid any question of history of transportation being put to the householders. It might be noted that Lord Russell had, only a few months earlier, put a halt to the system of transporting felons to New South Wales and was well aware of the growing sentiment of emancipation in the colony (ADB online 2006). The 1840 Act was not so much a reflection of a strongly established concern over privacy as a dimension of political debate between different interests in the society. Confidentiality emerged as an element of political compromise.

The Act on Census and Statistics of the Commonwealth (No. 15 of 1905) is sometimes referenced as the source of policy to destroy census returns. In fact an exami-


6 Terence K Hull

nation of the Act reveals that secrecy and confidentiality are set out in ways open to various interpretations. The Act has five parts. Part 3 deals with the Census, and there are three clauses (out of eight) dealing with penalties if members of the public fail to fill in the census form, fail to provide information on household residents to the Col- lector, or fail to provide information on any regular resident who is away on census night. In each case the penalty was £10. There is no specific mention of confidentiality of the census information. Part 4 on Statistics lays out a similar set of requirements for citizens to provide information, with similar fines for non-compliance. Only in Part 5 titled Miscellaneous is there any mention of secrecy with clause 24 stating that 'No officer shall, except as allowed by this Act or the regulations, divulge the contents of any form filled up in pursuance of this Act, or any information furnished in pursuance of this Act. Penalty: Fifty pounds' (emphasis added).

The wording for this Commonwealth Act drew heavily on the New South Wales Census Act of 1900, the basis of the 1901 Census, and did not imply any expectation that the individual census forms would be destroyed. In fact it opens the door to the possibility that officers could divulge contents of forms if regulations were formu- lated to allow this to occur. The New South Wales government had after all preserved the Collectors' Books from the 1891 and 1901 enumerations and these had details on names and addresses of heads of household and information on race. As in Victoria there were widespread concerns about confidentiality, but these had not been translated into policies of destruction.

The issues of privacy that pervaded the debate leading up to the 1905 Act were less to do with long-term maintenance of the records than with two sensitive topics of the day: religion and income. Members of the Opposition questioned two aspects of the Act. First was the clause making voluntary ¿he provision of information on 'religious denomination or sect'. Speakers pressed for this to be compulsory like all other census questions. They sought assurances that individuals could report 'no religion' as a true option and face no punishment. Second was the demand that the specific wording of the oath to be taken by the census officials be inserted as a schedule of the Act. Here Opposition members warned against leaving too much room for the Minister or the Statistician to enact substantial regulations. There were even some calls for the actual householders' schedule to be incorporated in the Act so as to ensure that the Government would not go beyond the mandate of Parliament in its efforts to collect statistics. The environment in which this debate was conducted was obviously shaped by the experience of the 1891 Victorian enumeration and the tense politics of class and religion that prevailed in the decades surrounding Federation.

The consequences of the ambiguous Act and the climate of suspicion are to be found in the 'Notes' prepared by the Commonwealth Statistician, G. H. Knibbs, for the First Commonwealth Census of 3 April 1911. Instructions to the Collectors state that they must assure people that 'the information supplied is regarded as most strictly confidential' (emphasis in original, Knibbs 1911: 12). This strong warning was a response to the 'vague idea that in some way or other the Census authorities are anxious either to publish to the world or to ascertain for their own personal information the idiosyncrasies of the individual members of the community. Nothing could be further from the truth'. It is here that the case is made for the census as a purely statistical document with Knibbs stressing that 'the Census results are absolutely impersonal and refer to aggregates only' (Knibbs 1911: 12). If aggregates are the only purpose, then there is no need to keep the individual records beyond the creation of



the needed tables. Here in this very succinct phrase from the first Commonwealth Statistician we have the core belief in the government valuation of census data. How- ever, throughout the first century after Federation there have been alternative values placed on censuses.

The value and the meaning of the census as a source of individual information

Ironically, the first challenge to the notion of an 'aggregates only7 value of census materials came from Knibbs himself, in 1915. The occasion was not a normal population census, but rather a War Census, authorized under a special Act of Parliament, but specifically the task of the Statistician. Unlike the routine census, this collection was not carried out by Collectors, but rather by individuals who were required to fill out cards and post them (free) to the Commonwealth Statistician by 15 September 1915. There were two cards, a Personal Card to be filled in by every male aged 18 to 59, and a Wealth and Income card to be filled in by every adult (male or female) in receipt of income or in possession of property. Notices to alert people to their obliga- tions under the War Census Act were posted in English and German, and the Per- sonal Card asked for details about any military training the man might have had, and his possession of any firearms and ammunition. The Wealth and Income card was incredibly detailed with lists of livestock, bank accounts and property and a request to give the horsepower for each motor vehicle or tractor owned.

These cards were compiled by the Bureau of Census and Statistics (forerunner of the ABS), and used in state offices of government departments and the military for a variety of administrative activities, including conscription. For the duration of the war the cards were checked and re-checked to identify individuals of interest. The use of the data for aggregated information was spotty, but included a calculation by then New South Wales and later Commonwealth Statistician Stanley Carver who estimated the NSW gross domestic income for 1914-1915 (Haig 2001: 1). In the run up to World War II another 'National Register Census' was carried out by the Bureau of Census and Statistics to enumerate men and materials of interest to a government organizing for combat (ABS 2005b: 87) and again the enumeration was carried out under the authority of a special Act but organized by the Bureau of Census and Statistics for the benefit of other government departments. While conscientious objectors and anti war advocates objected to these enumerations, their concerns were less about privacy and more directed to involvement in the mobilization for violent conflict. For most citizens the call to arms was also a call to loyalty, and this was dem- onstrated through compliance with the War Census.

Looking back from the vantage point of 2006, the use of the word 'census' and the involvement of the ABS in the collection of detailed personal administrative information was a disturbing, if not to say tragic, turn of events. Certainly the impact on the public perception of government statistics must have been enormous, and this has particularly affected the public perception of the confidentiality of any enumeration called a 'census'. This is an issue clearly deserving of greater attention by historians than it has attracted to date.

The most vociferous call for preservation of individual census records comes not from government departments, but rather the millions of people worldwide who rely on such records for genealogies (Sainty 1982; Nicholls and Vine Hall 1985; Vine Hall 2003). It is hard for us to imagine the difference it would make for Australians


8 Terence H. Hull

to have access to the individual census records of the nineteenth century, as enjoyed by people in the UK and USA. Certainly it would make the work of family historians much more rewarding. Today the search for lost ancestors concentrates on shipping records, birth and death registers and the occasional published directories that are still available in libraries and online. There are the tantalizing bits and pieces: Col- lector's Books from the 1891 and 1901 censuses, the individual records from Tasma- nia, South Australia, the Northern Territory and other communities unaffected by the great fire of 1882 or the bureaucratic tussles of the 1890s. But the possibility of finding a relative listed in the individual household forms is remote. The usefulness of individual records for genealogy is obvious, but the value of that activity for the community at large is not obvious to people who are not involved in the pastime of ancestor hunting.

For society at large, perhaps the most important loss attendant on the destruction of census forms is the disappearance of a record of community context in the stories of individuals. We rely on histories of people and events to identify those forces that shape Australian culture and identity. Only a few individuals rate a published biography, and even among those who do, the nature of the surviving information is often partial and comparatively narrow. This can best be imagined if we look at a case where surviving census records have contributed to an Australian story.

The story has three characters: Walter Burley Griffin, Marion Mahony (Griffin) and Stella (Miles) Franklin. For Canberrans the names are familiar, but not obviously connected. Griffin was the American architect who won the competition to design the capital city, and his wife Marion Mahony did the beautiful renderings that ensured his success. Griffin and Mahony moved to Australia and lived and worked in both Sydney and Melbourne, creating some of the most important architectural developments in those cities in the 1910s and 1920s.

Miles Franklin's first book My Brilliant Career was based on the precocious young writer's adolescence in the Brindabella hills outside of the current city of Canberra. Spurred by her literary success she moved to Sydney, but then decided to try her luck overseas and set sail for America arriving in San Francisco just weeks after the disastrous 1906 earthquake had destroyed the city. Following advice from a friend she headed east, arriving in Chicago where she sought employment and continued her writing.

Historians have long had the elements of the story lines that crossed in 1910 with these three people all living in Chicago - Griffin setting up his own architectural practice after leaving Frank Lloyd Wright's office; Mahony joining him after Wright had run off to Europe with the wife of a client leaving her to complete outstanding projects; and Franklin preparing copy for a women's trade union newspaper. Letters, diaries and photographs remain to show these young people at the height of their creative powers. There is a tantalizing link suggested. Griffin had been fascinated by Australia since his teenage years when he read of Federation, and Franklin was one of a small number of Australians living in Chicago, his hometown. Did they meet? Did he know of her Brilliant Career? What were their lives like as he and Mahony tried to depict a landscape for a country they had never seen, but that Franklin knew so well?

The 1910 Census of the United States gives us some surprising insights into the trio when use is made of one of the major genealogy tools, the website Ancestry.com. This site has created special index pages for individuals recorded in the 1910 Census



of the United States, complete with information on the person's background, and including lists of household members sharing a residence, and nearby neighbours identified by the numbers on the schedules listing households and individuals.

We find that Stella Franklin appears on the computer index for the 19th ward of Chicago as a native of Austria, even though the image of the original form shows Aus- tralia as the birthplace of herself and her parents. According to the original census form she lived in Indiana House, a boarding hotel for women in enumeration district 935 (Appendix 2). Her neighbours included women from across the United States as well as two Germans, a Swede and a Norwegian. Most of the residents worked as teachers, clerks, and stenographers. Florence Mitchell, the eldest at 56, was listed as a Dermatologist and Scholar. Stella Franklin was recorded as Secretary of a Women's Trade Union. On this one sheet of paper we find a snapshot of Franklin's Chicago milieu, and potential insights into the daily social contacts she had. It is an image of independent women living and working in a bustling metropolis.

By contrast Marion Mahony, at 38 years of age, lived a little further south, not far from the University of Chicago, but still in the 19th ward of the city (Appendix 3). Her neighbours were mainly Russian Jews and Italians, with many complex families, and largely service jobs. Mahony was unusual as the only single-person householder on the form, and one of two women recorded as head of a household. Richard Sederer, a few houses away, was enumerated as a 36-year-old Bohemian whose occupation was given as reporter, but he is also the head of a two-person household with a fellow Bohemian boarder named Otto Plasak, 30, a book-keeper.

The search for Walter Burley Griffin turns up an interesting anomaly. As with the 1900 Census, W.B. Griffin is recorded as living with parents and siblings in Elmhurst. But in 1910 Walter is 31 years of age, and the family census form includes his two sisters, a servant, and her child. Potentially this was a very crowded house. Walter is listed as an architect with his own office. This much we know from the biographers. In 1910 he worked downtown in Steinway Hall, a prominent building near Lake Michigan designed by Marion Mahony's cousin. At first glance this seems a difficult commute in 1910 at a time when biographers talk of his extraordinarily busy schedule. Looking at the Ancestry.com index page for Stella Franklin created from the 1910 Census records we find a very strange coincidence. There in the list of her 'Household Members' the computer has inadvertently included the names of thirty neighbours including one W.B. Griffin, a resident of the Alexandria Hotel, next door to Indiana House, the all-women hostel where Stella lived. There is no detailed information on him or numerous other 'lodgers' away from that hotel when the enumera- tor came to take the census. There is simply a list of names presumably copied out of the hotel register.

If we were looking to fill out biographies of Franklin, Griffin or Mahony, the census forms would be a valuable source of information about the nature of their living arrangements at a time when all three were working at particularly important projects in their lives. Most importantly the forms tell us much about the social milieu they plunged into on a daily basis and some of the people they saw on the way to work, and perhaps provide the basis for speculation about the setting in which any biography must be established. In the course of the next twenty-seven years the three did become acquainted, and in some ways close. Franklin visited Griffin and Mahony in Castlecrag when they organized parties of the free spirits with whom they socialized.


10 Terence H. Hull

After hearing of his death in Lucknow, India, Franklin wrote Griffin's obituary for the Bulletin magazine. In this very personal vale she notes: 'I first met him in his offices high above Lake Michigan in Chicago, where he and his wife showed Alice Henry and me the plans for the dream city of Canberra. At that date the young architect's thick crest was of Saxon gold, to match in coloring his eyes of flame blue' (Franklin 1937: 2). Whether she might have known him before that visit to the offices is an open question - perhaps buried in diaries or letters, but not obvious in the census, despite the tantalizing suggestion of potential contact. What is perhaps most important in this case is not the proximity of three now famous people at a particular point in time, but the fact that they are placed in context with the many unknown, or little remembered people who made up the communities in which they lived. The point is not the individual record, but the record of community. That is what Austral- ians have lost with the destruction of the individual census records from the early twentieth century.

Myths and realities of census privacy If the early loss of census records could be attributed to accidents or bloody-minded bureaucracy, in the late twentieth century destruction of individual forms and obfus- cation of small cells in matrix and other tables became entrenched in policy as a result of public debates over concepts of privacy (Australian Law Reform Commis- sion 1979: 37; ABS 2005a, b). Modern concerns over confidentiality and the census emerged not so much from any direct threat to privacy by officers of the ABS similar to the events surrounding the 1915 War Census, but rather by the threat that could be posed if policies and procedures designed to safeguard routine census information were ever breached.

One interpretation of the policy of destruction of the census forms points to the influence of Gordon Barton, an ex-Liberal Party member and influential publisher in the 1960s and 1970s (Cole 1976: 118). Gordon Barton established and was head of the Australia Party and in this role was an outspoken critic of government. His personal philosophy had been shaped in the intellectual circles of Sydney in the 1950s and 1960s, and particularly by the writings of University of Sydney Philosophy Professor John Anderson whose essay 'The Servile State' provided a particularly Australian foundation for many of the student protests against the later years of the Menzies government and the nation's involvement in America's war in Vietnam. At the heart of discussions carried out by the disciples of Anderson was the concept of 'permanent protest'. In the 1950s and 1960s this was translated into opposition to a wide range of government policies, from wars and censorship to White Australia. Barton's suspicion of government extended to issues of personal privacy, and in the early 1970s he and his colleagues were outspoken critics of attempts to institute national population registration systems. Their critique encompassed all government attempts to compile information on citizens, including the national census. The Australia Party had an influence well beyond the formal list of members, and it can be argued that they captured much of the spirit of the time, establishing a broad and deep attitude of cynicism about government. Remember, the 1960s and 1970s were characterized as times of rebellion in many countries. Witness the 1968 protests by university students in Paris, the decade of anti-war demonstrations in the USA, and the exhibitions of student power in bringing down the Sukarno government in Indonesia. Also, in



Europe, and particularly in England and Germany, there were objections raised to census taking. What was distinctive about the Australian case was the influence of Anderson's philosophy on a generation of politically minded Australian youth, and the emergence of census officials as the major force pressing for destruction of the census forms.

It is within this atmosphere that census plans were developed out of an assump- tion that government could not be trusted to protect the original forms from misuse or premature release. A pivotal point in the history of the Australian Census came in 1971 in the course of a protracted public debate about a proposed population registration card. The Treasurer Billy Snedden was the Minister responsible for the Bureau of Census and Statistics, and thus in charge of the largest routine collection of personal information in the form of the quinquennial population census. Caught unawares by charges that the government was holding on to census materials that might contribute to a database of individual information, he had told Parliament that the census forms were always destroyed following the completion of data processing. Privately corrected by the Statistician who explained that the forms of the two most recent censuses were always kept on hand in case there was a need to generate tables for new government needs, he announced on 1 June 1971 that all extant census forms would be immediately destroyed (Australian Law Reform Commission, 1979: 37). This meant that the 1961 and 1966 forms were directly consigned to the shredder, and the public was promised that the 1971 forms would be destroyed as soon as the de-identified data could be put on magnetic tape.

By the 1980s the Australian Bureau of Statistics had developed a set of arguments justifying destruction on the basis of law, custom, and operational requirements. In essence the ABS feared that any attempt to preserve individual records would lead to a loss of public confidence in the organization, a rise in the proportion of citizens resisting the requirement to give information, and a reduction in the usefulness of the aggregated census tables used to guide public policy. For over two decades the strongest voices arguing for destruction of the forms came from the ABS itself.

Census records are Commonwealth records, and as such their destruction is controlled by the Archives Act 1983, which requires appraisal and authorization by the Director General of the National Archives of Australia (ABS 1996: 29). The Australian Archives were not consulted before the announcement of the Government's decision to destroy the 1986 census forms but an appraisal was subsequently conducted. It concluded that name-identified census records had value for a number of research uses but that the need to protect the statistical integrity of the census (and the Gov- ernment's commitment to census destruction) should override other considerations. The 'strongest and most practical reason' given was the potential of techniques such as record linkage used in medical and demographic research. The decision to destroy the name-identified forms was based on the perceived public attitude to privacy, especially the possibility of undermining the willingness of individuals to provide accurate information. A limited appraisal was conducted in 1996 and, although the Australian Archives noted that the adverse effects of privacy concerns on census success could not be clearly estimated, destruction was again authorized. The authority issued in 1996 was a continuing authority, applying to all future censuses. Review of continuing authorities is supposed to take place every ten years.

In 1998 the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Consti- tutional Affairs criticized the limited appraisal carried out by the National Archives


12 Terence H. Hull

and considered the resulting disposal authority unsatisfactory (HoR 1998). At those hearings the ABS maintained its institutional support for the destruction of name- identified Census records and recommended that they be removed from the disposal provisions of the Archives Act 1983, as ABS considered census disposal a matter for Government and Parliament to decide (Australian Law Reform Commission 1998). The National Archives attempted to play a neutral role in the debate and George Nichols, the then Director-General of the NAA, stated he 'does not seek to argue for either retention or destruction' (Mutch 2002: 3).

The urge to keep government-collected information secret is not limited to the census. From 21 July 2004 regulations were put in place forbidding public distribution of the electoral rolls in any form. This represented a major change from the days when large volumes with lists of citizens' names and addresses were available in every post office. However this does not mean that the electoral address data are not available. There are computers in local offices of the Electoral Commission where you can search state files for names of long-lost friends or family members. Police investigators cannot tap into the electoral roll database in the style of televisions's CSI characters, but they can go down to the Electoral Commission and use the public computers. What is controlled is convenience rather than absolute access (see http: / / www.aec.gov.au /.content/ what /enrolment/ how_roll.htm). By contrast there are strict laws and penalties prohibiting any person other than an officer of ABS gain- ing access to individual data from the census, and a backup guarantee of privacy through the destruction of forms unless a citizen specifically requests their retention and protection. There are not strong political interests committed to the retention of individual census records, so the regular debates about maintaining census documents tend to be carried largely by privacy advocates and ABS officials concerned with avoiding the politicization of the activity.

A UNESCO study in 1991 listed the census as one of four essential personal information record types that should be preserved by archivists, although it does note that it is the raw census data which is essential, rather than the physical questionnaires or intermediate process documents (Cook 1991). Demographers, historians and epide- miologists have all testified that records should be protected but preserved, largely on the premise that detailed data could in future yield incomparable research results, much of which will have direct social and health benefits. In a community where social research is routinely mocked by shock jocks and misrepresented by many media commentators these arguments are easily ignored.

The strongest lobbying for the retention of name-identified forms has come from family historians and genealogists. Nick Vine Hall, who died in 2006, was the prin- cipal spokesman for this group (1985, 2003). To some degree their arguments have been dismissed as self-interested. Critics presume that linking families back to distant ancestors is at best only valuable for an individual, and at worst a potential intrusion on the privacy of ancestors who might not want some of their personal stories revealed. This latter point seems to be the justification for a 72-year or 100-year embargo on census documents: perhaps an attempt to provide lifetime protection from embarrassment over things done in youth. The decision to destroy the census records on the basis of potential harm to citizens appears to have had virtually no critical evaluation. Sometimes people talk of protecting battered women from estranged spouses, or the revelation of personal data to law enforcement, taxation or immigration officials. It is hard to imagine how a 30-year embargo would not achieve



the same degree of protection. The specification of a century is simply the assurance that the information would only be revealed after the only possible primary witness for verification has died. It is a case of minimizing any potential for harm by maxi- mizing the delay in any potential benefit.

In this paper I have attempted to present another element of value related to the individual census records. This relates to the preservation of the identities of communities as a supplementary antidote to the 'great man' approaches to history. As the case of Griffin, Mahony and Franklin suggests, the census provides a different perspective on individuals. By preserving the record of individuals in the context of society, the interpretation of national identity is greatly enriched, both through innovative applications of aggregate data analysis of individual records and through detailed study of individual stories in aggregate context. It is too late to preserve the forms of twentieth century enumerations that were destroyed under a variety of policies, and sometimes by misadventure, but it is not too late to learn from that experience and make greater efforts to preserve the records of future enumerations.

Conclusion

Australia is not alone in prioritizing current privacy fears over potential research benefits when carrying out national censuses. New Zealand and otiier 'comparators' also destroy individual forms once the data have been processed into anonymized data sets. Other areas of the world suffer the destruction of forms through accident or lack of interest. Preservation is relatively rare. The USA, Canada and UK keep the forms under embargo for a number of generations. What is unusual about Australia is the mythic structure that has grown around the notion of census confidentiality. As with many myths there are grains of truth. It is true that concerns over convict status did shape census taking, but that occurred in 1840, and was not a feature of the Federation period when the nation was constructed. It is also true that Australia has long destroyed individual census records, but that was originally a matter of accident. The most damaging policies of early and total destruction only emerged in 1971 when the census was taken hostage by debates over privacy related to a proposed national population registration system. Since that time the intrusions on personal privacy by the state and private sector data systems has grown enormously, greatly eclipsing any potential for misuse of ABS Census data protected through a system of embargoes. There is no need for destruction of personal information if the system of protecting that information for set periods of time is strong. Moreover, despite the very diffident attitude of ABS to preservation, 52.7 per cent of the population posi- tively opted to have their individual records retained in 2001 and this proportion rose to 56.1 per cent for the 2006 Census (ABS 2007). There were substantial differentials in participation, with two-thirds of those born in England, Scotland and India ticking the box, compared to less than half of those born in Vietnam, China or Greece.

Considering that the decision to keep information required a box to be ticked, it is likely that a large number would have been happy to have the records preserved but were not motivated to think about the question and make a specific decision. It is also possible that there were many people who simply did not understand the question. The numbers specifically favouring destruction are hard to gauge from an 'opt-in' procedure.

Finally, it may be true that some people would resist filling in the census forms if


14 Terence H. Hull

they thought their privacy would not be protected, but like the 'Jedi Knight' response to the question on religion, that reflects an attitude that is neither common nor reason- able. Australians will demand protections in law, policy and practice to prevent their census forms being misused, and to prevent the sort of intrusions that arose with the 1915 War Census. But there is reason to believe that a bipartisan bill to ensure proper protections would satisfy the vast majority of citizens. Part of the reason that can be offered for doing so is the promise of more useful and beneficial research, including personal family research, thorough medical research, and the development of social history to yield a richer understanding of Australian national identity.

Acknowledgment This paper is a revised version of the Presidential Address for the Australian Popula- tion Association's 13d1 Biennial Conference, Adelaide, 6 December 2006. The author acknowledges the useful comments of two anonymous reviewers. Thanks are also due to Dr Marion Mantón, a close friend of Gordon Barton, who provided personal insight into the debates surrounding census records in the 1970s. Ruth Pitt provided valuable research assistance in tracking down historical sources.

Note 1 Thanks to Barry Smith for pointing out that Lord John Russell was a Lord in his own right,

but remained in the House of Commons throughout his career, and hence was able to play a far more influential role in the politics of the day.

References Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 1996. Annual Report 1995-1996. Canberra: Australian

Government Publishing Services. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 2005a. The Population Census - A Brief History. <http:/ /

www.abs.gov.au / Ausstats / [email protected] / PreviousproductsBOl .0Feature%20 Article92005?o pendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=1301.0&issue=2005&num=&view=>. Can- berra: Accessed: 26 November 2006.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 2005b. Informing a Natton: Ine tvolutton of the Australian Bureau of Statistics 1905-2005. Canberra.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 2007. Media Fact Sheet: Retention Facts and Figures (Census Time Capsule). <http:/ / www.abs.gov.au/ ausstats /[email protected]/7dl2b0f6763c78caca 257061001cc588/3cdb901b82ecaee0ca257306000d5f0b!OpenDocument>. Accessed: 5 July 2007.

Australian Dictionary of Biography Online (ADB Online). 2006. Entries for Lord John Russell (written by John M. Ward), Sir George Gipps (Samuel Clyde McCulloch), and Professor John Anderson (W.M. O'Neil).

Australian Law Ketorm Commission. iy/y. Privacy ana the census, Keport Numoer ll. ^anoerra: Australian Government Publishing Service.

Australian Law Reform Commission. 1998. Australia s Federal Record: A Review of Archives Act 1983. Report No.85. <http://www.austlii.edu.au /au /other /aire /publications /reports/ 85/toc.htm>. Accessed: 2 August 2007.

Briscoe, G. and L. Smith. 2002. The Aboriginal Population Revisited: 70 000 years to the Present. Aboriginal History Monograph 10. Canberra: Aboriginal History.



Castles, 1. 1991. Privacy and access to census records. Pp. 59-72 in S. Stuckey and K. Dan (eds), Privacy versus Access. Papers from a seminar on the issues of the right to privacy, the right to access to information, and the dilemma of the records' custodian. Canberra: Australian Society of Archivists.

Coghlan, T.A. 1894. Census of 1891: Statistician's Report. In The General Report on the Eleventh Census of New South Wales. Sydney: Charles Potter, Government Printer.

Cole, R.W. 1976. The census of population and housing, 30 June 1976. Australian Journal of Statistics 18(3): 115-130.

Cook, T. 1991. The Archival Appraisal of Records Containing Personal Information: A RAMP Study with Guidelines. Paris: UNESCO.

Franklin, Miles. 1937. Walter Burley Griffin. Bulletin 3 March. Gipps, George. 1841. Letter to Lord J. Russell, No. 2. Legislative 1st January. Praying the Royal

allowance of a census act. Microfilm AI 267 (pt. 6, pp. 1301-1302), CY 695. Haig, B. 2001. New estimates of Australian GDP: 1861-1948/49. Australian Economic History

Review 41(1): 1-34. House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs (HoR).

1998. Saving Our Census and Preserving Our History: A Report on the Inquiry into the Treatment of Name Identified Forms. Canberra.

Kippen, R. and D. Lucas. 2004. Sources for Australian historical demography. Working Papers in Demography No. 93. Canberra: Demography and Sociology Program, Australian National University.

Knibbs, G. H. 1911. Notes. In First Commonwealth Census of 3rd April 1911. Melbourne: Com- monwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics.

Mutch, S. 2002. Public policy revolt: saving the 2001 Australian census. Archives and Manu- scripts 30 (2): 26-44.

Nicholls, M. and N. Vine Hall. 1985. Destruction of the census in Australia. Descent 15(3): 118- 122.

Sainty, M.R. 1982. The census question - privacy versus historical value. Historic Australia 1(1): 55-57.

Shane, Scott. 2006. U.S. to declassify secrets at age 25. New York Times, 21 December. <http:/ / www.nytimes.com / 2006 / 12 / 21 / Washington / 21 declassify.html?ex=1324357200&en=2e2f b735c90bd0d4&ei=5088&parmer=rssnyt&emc==rss>. Accessed: 2 August 2007.

Sydney Morning Herald. 1882. Destruction of the Garden Palace by fire. 23 September 1882. Vine Hall, N. 1985. Tracing Your Family History in Australia: A Guide to Sources. Sydney: Rigby

Publishers. Vine Hall, N. 2003. Saving the Australian Census - a 30 year battle. Ancestor 26(8): 12-13. War Census. 1915. War Census: Handbook for Public Guidance in Filling up War Census Cards.

Compiled from Information Issued by Bureau of Census and Statistics. Melbourne: Melville and Mullen.


16 Terence H. Hull

Appendix 1: Summary of the disposition of individual Australian muster records and census forms

Year of census Information on holdings Coverage and disposition

Before More than 30 musters carried out in the first 40 years of Sites of establishment of 1828 settlement (Kippen and Lucas 2004) convict settlements and

concentrations of settler populations

1828 First census proper, carried out by in New South Wales New South Wales and parts of (now) Queensland and Tasmania (Kippen household schedules held and Lucas 2004) in state archives

1832 Records available from State Archives of Western Western Australia 1 July Australia and the Battye Library. Published as A Colony

Detailed: The First Census of Western Australia, 1832, Berryman, I., 1979, Creative Research, Perth (cited Vine Hall 1985)

1833 New South Wales census - Queensland and Tasmania included

1836 The Victoria returns from 1836 (November) have been New South Wales census - published in Historical Records of Victoria - Foundation Victoria, Queensland and Series, Volume 3, Early Development of Melbourne, 1836- Tasmania included 1839. Held at State Library of Victoria as well as Mitchell ì , Western Australia and LaTrobe libraries. Records held in State Archives of Western Australia and Battye Library - State Records Office of Western Australia

1837 Records held by Battye Library - State Records Office Western Australia of Western Australia. Published as Census of Western Australia, 1837, Library Board of Western Australia, Perth, 1973 (cited Vine Hall 1985)

1841 A household census was taken on 2 March 1841, from New South Wales census - which a small proportion of household returns survive. Victoria and Queensland Apart from the names of both the head of the household included and the proprietor, only statistical (i.e. aggregated) (27 Sept) information about the household. Nonetheless, if South Australian census you know the likely family structure, it is possible to relate some information to known individuals. Details shown - Householder Name, Place, Proprietor Name, Dwelling Construction, Number of Persons (total and free), together with statistical breakdown by Age, Civil Condition (convict, free etc), Religion and Occupation, all subdivided by Sex and Marital Status (<http:/ /members. iinet.net.au / ~perthdps / convicts / census.html>). Searchable index to the 1841 New South Wales census available on New South Wales State Records Website (<http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/staterecords/>) and a copy is held by the NLA. South Australian Census - CD index available, Names searchable onlinea

1842 Some census returns survive, held by the Archives Office Tasmanian census of Tasmania13



1843 Some census returns survive, held by the Archives Office Tasmanian census of Tasmania

1 844 Held by Public Record Office of Victoria Victorian census

1846 Returns from a muster/ census held in 1846 are held by New South Wales census - the Mitchell library and the Australia Society of Victoria and Queensland Genealogists included NSW returns destroyed in Garden Palace fire South Australian census

Tasmanian census

1848 Some census returns from the Tasmania census survive, Western Australian census held by the Archives Office of Tasmania Tasmanian census

1849 Returns from a muster /census held in 1849 are held by Tasmania a number of organizations, including the NLA (Vine Hall 1985)

1851 Some census returns from the Tasmania census survive, New South Wales census - held by the Archives Office of Tasmania Victoria and Queensland NSW returns destroyed in Garden Palace fire included

South Australian census Tasmanian census

1854 Destroyed? Victorian census

Destroyed? Western Australian census

1855 According to State Library of SA site the census forms South Australia census were destroyed after tabulations were complete, but no information is available on the reasons for the destruction.

1856 NSW returns destroyed in Garden Palace fire. New South Wales census - Queensland included

1857 Some census returns from the Tasmania census survive, Victorian census held by the Archives Office of Tasmania Tasmanian census

1859 Census returns held by Battye library - State Records Western Australian census (31 Dec) Office of Western Australia

1861 NSW returns destroyed in Garden Palace fire New South Wales census Victorian census

Queensland census South Australian census Tasmania census

1864 ? Queensland census

1866 ? South Australian census

1868 ? Queensland census

1870 ? Western Australian census Tasmanian census

1871 NSW returns destroyed in Garden Palace fire New South Wales census

Queensland census Victoria census South Australia census


18 Terence H. Hull

Appendix 1 (continued)


1876 Queensland census South Australian census

1881 NSW returns destroyed in Garden Palace fire. A simultaneous census Records available for Northern Territory - lists wras

conducted as part including name, age, occupation, residence, place of £f Empire

a census of me Bntlsh birth and religion available on microfiche produced by Empire Genealogical Society of the Northern Territory New South Wales

Victoria

Queensland South Australia Western Australia Tasmania Northern Territory

1886 ? Queensland 1891 State Records NSW and NLA have collectors' books for New South Wales

household returns, which provide the name of the head y^ . of household but not detail at the individual level. Records available for Northern Territory - lists including name, age, occupation, residence, place of South Australia birth and religion available on microfiche produced by Western Australia Genealogical Society of the Northern Territory Tasmania

Northern Territory 1901 New South Wales Collectors' Books held by State Records New South Wales

New South Wales. The census was destroyed. Victoria Records available for Northern Territory - lists Oueensland including name, age, occupation, residence, place of birth and religion available on microfiche produced by South Australia Genealogical Society of the Northern Territory Western Australia No censuses containing personal names exist after 1901e Tasmania Census maps held at ANU Northern Territory

This was the first and last national census conducted under New South Wales legislation, and these records have recently been released (HoR 1998).

1911 Conducted under the Census and Statistics Act 1905 A t« which established the Commonwealth Bureau of Census P and Statistics (CBCS). From 1933 until 1971 the forms

from two previous censuses were retained to ensure information is available for cross-tabulation (HoR 1998).

1915 Compilation of War Census requiring all males aged 18-59 to fill in a Personal Card (to be used in recruitment) and all persons over 17 who had income or property to submit a Wealth and Income Card (War Census 1915).



1933 The 1931 census was postponed because of the Depression, the 1933 census obtained information on the impact of the Depression (ABS 2005a).

1941 (?) Compilation of War Census requiring all males aged 18-59 to register information to be used in recruitment.

1947 Census delayed owing to World War II (ABS 2005a)

1954 National

1961 1961 Census schedules destroyed in 1971, as ordered by Treasurer Bill Snedden - this included microfilms of the 1961 schedules as well as paper forms.

1966 1966 Census schedules destroyed in 1971 as ordered by Treasurer Bill Snedden

1971 Privacy concerns were raised by the Australia Party (led National. First coverage by Gordon Barton) and gained momentum with publicity of all Indigenous about overseas anti-census campaigns. Treasurer Bill Australians. Snedden ordered the destruction of all census forms held by the CBCS. He also ordered Census forms for the 1971 census to be destroyed once the information had been transferred to magnetic tapes (see Law Reform Commission 1979:37). This was the first year that Indigenous Australians were included in the census count (ABS 2005a).

1976 First census conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (established with the Australian Bureau of Statistics Act 1975). Concerns that adverse media coverage about privacy and confidentiality during the Census may have affected response rates and accuracy. Due to budget constraints only a 50% sample was processed (ABS 2005a). A negative media campaign focused on the intrusiveness of the expanded census form.

1981 An ABS survey showed that significant numbers 20 November 1979 - of respondents objected to the census or doubted Ministerial Statement confidentiality. The 1979 Australian Law Reform to Parliament regarding Commission Report 'Privacy and the Census' conduct of the census stressed that census destruction was not essential to maintains the policy of confidentiality. census form destruction

1986 First census to come under the Archives Act 1983. Decision 25 February 1985 - to destroy forms announced in Parliament in Feb. 1985; Ministerial Statement after appraisal, the Director-General of Australian to Parliament regarding Archives authorized destruction conduct of the census

maintains the policy of census form destruction

Authority to destroy forms issued May 1987

1991 First census to come under the Privacy Act 1988. 4 May 1989 - Ministerial Appraisal of value commenced in 1987 and included Statement to Parliament public consultation, cost estimates and consultation with regarding conduct of demographic and health organizations; Destruction the census maintains the authorized by the Director-General of Australian policy of census form Archives destruction

Authority to destroy forms issued in Sept 1989


20 Terence K Hull

Appendix 1 (continued)


1996 A restricted appraisal of value commenced in 1993 and 20 September 1994 - included a limited survey of historical, research and Ministerial Statement government bodies. Destruction authorized by the to Parliament regarding Director-General of Australian Archives; this census ran conduct of the census smoothly with only a low-key privacy debate maintains the policy of

census form destruction

Authority to destroy forms signed Sept 1994; a continuing auihority issued for all subsequent Census records, subject to review every 10 years

2001 The Census Information Legislation Amendment Act 2000 allows respondents to choose to have their imaged census forms retained on microfilm by the National Archives of Australia for 99 years and then released for research purposes. The personal information becomes part of the Census lime Capsule Project. These changes were made despite opposition by the ABS and the Statistician; around half of the 2001 records were retained.

2006 Plan for voluntary retention of individual census records for 2006 and future censuses, under the same conditions as the 2001 census, was announced in Parliament in June 2005. Other issues debated related to the 2006 census include the continuation of the Census Data Enhancement Proposal and the collection of information using the internet.

a <http: / / www.jaunay.com / census.html>. b <http: / / www.archives.tas.gov.au / genealres / census%20index.htm>. c <http: / / www.nla.gov.au / guides / disco verguides / auscensus.html>

Lists of extant individual records can be found on <http://www.jaunay.com/auscensus.html>



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The strange history and problematic future of the Australian census

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