About a third of Australians have completed their census ahead of time.

Social researcher Mark McCrindle says it’s an important in a number of ways for policy makers.

“The layers here is where the benefit is, you can for example find out how many three bedroom households in this particular area, or how long they have lived in their location so you get a sense of mobility or a trend in demand for housing, or where there are higher or lower birth rates.

“All of that is very useful for planning, census data is one of the most useful tools we have for community planning at all layers of government.”

He said it will give a sense of the internal migration in Australia, as well as other changes to lifestyle during the pandemic.

“It’s probably the most important census we have ever had, because it is in the middle of a pandemic, and yes definitely there’s going to be some different answers.

“There’s uncertainty as to whether the declining birth rate we were seeing has continued or have we seen a COVID birth spike? That will be answered in this census.”

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