A Question Worth Answering
On 11 August 2026, every person in Australia will be counted. For the veteran community, one question on that form carries more weight than most; and the case for answering it has nothing to do with trusting the department that failed you.
There may be a version of this article that opens by telling veterans they should have more faith in government. This is not that article.
The distrust many veterans hold toward the institutions that administered their service is not a mood, a grievance, or a failure of perspective. It is a conclusion drawn from evidence, and the evidence is now a matter of public record. Any argument for participation that begins by disputing that conclusion deserves to fail.
The distrust is documented
The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide delivered its Final Report on 9 September 2024: seven volumes, more than 3,000 pages, and 122 recommendations. It examined administrative processes turned against members who complained, transition arrangements that left people without support at the point of greatest risk, and delays in the claims system that compounded harm rather than relieving it.
Commissioner Dr Peggy Brown was direct about what the findings meant for the institutions themselves, describing the situation as “not a problem that Defence or DVA can be trusted to solve by themselves”. That is a Commissioner of a Royal Commission, in the Commission’s own words, on the question of trust.
The Commonwealth responded on 2 December 2024, agreeing or agreeing-in-principle to 104 of the 122 recommendations and noting a further 17 for additional work. Reform is under way. But a veteran who says the system has not earned their confidence is not being difficult. They are being accurate.
Distrust has a logic, and the logic ends in withdrawal. That withdrawal is understandable. In one specific case, it is also self-defeating. The case for the Census question
What the Census changed in 2021
Until 2021, Australia did not know how many veterans it had. Where they were, or their overall situation.
Let that statement sink in.
That is not an exaggeration. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has been explicit on the point: information existed about those currently serving, but very little was known about people who had previously served. The Department of Veterans’ Affairs knew about veterans who used its services; and close to nothing about those who did not. The department’s picture of the veteran population was, structurally, a picture of its own clients.
Consider what that means for anyone who walked away. A veteran who disengaged from DVA because the process had cost them more than it returned did not simply exit a relationship with a department. They exited the national picture. Their region’s veteran population fell. The case for a service in their town weakened. The cohort they belonged to grew smaller than it actually was.
The 2021 Census closed that gap. For the first time in the Census’s history, Australians were asked whether they had ever served in the ADF. The answer: 581,139 people had served or were serving — 84,865 currently serving and 496,276 former serving members.
That is roughly one in twenty Australian households included someone who had served.
Those figures were not produced by the department. They were produced by veterans filling in a form, including the several hundred thousand who had no other relationship with the Commonwealth at all.
What 2026 does, and does not, do
The ADF service question returns in 2026. The ABS has confirmed it as one of the topics carried forward with no change.
One thing did not proceed. In a 2023 submission to the ABS, the Royal Commission asked that the question be retained and that ex-serving members also be asked their most recent year of discharge — data that would allow research into the health and wellbeing of members who served in particular periods and through particular deployments, and would begin to address what the Commission identified as a significant gap: the more than 220,000 living Australians who served before 1985, about whom relatively little is known. Year of discharge is not part of the 2026 Census.
That is stated as fact, not complaint. Census content is determined through a public process, tested against respondent burden and data quality, and settled by the Government and the Parliament. But it does change the weight of the remaining question. The base count is, for another five years, the only national instrument that covers the whole veteran population rather than only the portion already within a departmental system.
The privacy objection, answered on the record
For some veterans, the hesitation is not apathy. It is a reasonable question about where the information goes. That question deserves a specific answer rather than reassurance.
– Confidentiality is statutory. Census information is protected by the secrecy provisions of the Census and Statistics Act 1905 and by the Privacy Act 1988. Section 19 makes it a criminal offence for any current or former ABS officer to divulge information collected under the Act.
– It does not travel between departments. The ABS does not share information from a Census form that could identify a person or their household with other government departments.
– It is not an enforcement tool. Census information is not used for compliance or enforcement activities, other than in relation to offences under the Census and Statistics Act itself.
– Identifiers are held briefly. Names are retained for up to 18 months after the Census (through the end of February 2028), and addresses for up to 36 months (through the end of August 2029).
– The form can be yours alone. Any person in a household may request a separate personal Census form. Nobody in the house needs to see the answer.
It follows from those provisions that ticking the ADF box does not create a departmental record, open or affect a claim, or attach to a service file. It contributes a number; nothing more, and nothing less.
Why a civics foundation is writing about this
The Foundation is about ensuring that Australia's youth, those under 25, become the best leaders and citizens they can be, and the connection is not incidental.
The civics lesson most young Australians are taught is that representation happens at elections. The more useful lesson is that representation depends on being visible in the data that governments use between elections — where hospitals are built, where services are funded, which cohorts are studied and which are assumed.
A Census form is a smaller act than a vote and, in some respects, a more consequential one.
There is a second lesson in this, and it is the harder one. Students are often taught civic participation as a form of endorsement: you take part because the institutions deserve it. That framing collapses the moment a person has good reason to believe an institution has failed them — and it leaves them with no model for participation except withdrawal.
This hits harder today than it did five, ten, thirty years ago. With the rise of affective polarisation and distrust at all stages of life, civic participation and education are becoming more difficult to teach.
The veteran community offers a more durable model. Completing the Census is not absolution. It does not settle a claim, forgive a delay, or accept an apology that has not been made. It is the mechanism by which the next cohort is properly counted and by which the evidence base for reform continues to exist independently of the departments being reformed. Participation and scrutiny are not opposites. They are the same civic instinct pointed at the same problem.
That is a thing worth teaching a seventeen-year-old, and the veteran community is in a position to demonstrate it.
Eleven August
Census night is Tuesday 11 August 2026. Participation is compulsory for everyone in Australia on that night.
For those who served: the question is there, it is confidential, it costs a few seconds, and it is the only place your service is counted if you are no longer inside a departmental system.
For the roughly one in twenty households with a serving or ex-serving member, the same applies to answering it accurately on behalf of a family member who is present that night.
Be counted. Not because the institutions have earned it — but because the count is the evidence, and the evidence is what makes the next argument winnable.
SUPPORT If this article raises difficulties for you: Open Arms — Veterans & Families Counselling is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on 1800 011 046. Lifeline is available on 13 11 14. Support is free and available to current and former serving members and their families. |
AUTHOR’S NOTE AND DISCLOSURE
I served in the Royal Australian Air Force from 2006 until my medical discharge on 18 April 2021. My postings included the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce with ADFIS between April 2013 and April 2014, and Security Forces as a Personnel Capability Officer. I write on this subject as someone who has sat on both sides of the trust question described above.
I am the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of The Odyssey Leadership Foundation (ACN 694 581 916), an Australian public company limited by guarantee based in Newcastle, New South Wales. The Foundation is not a government agency and holds no role in the conduct of the Census. Our application for registration with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission was submitted in May 2026 and is pending determination. Tax-deductible giving in support of our work is made through a Named Fund administered by Australian Communities Foundation, which holds Deductible Gift Recipient Item 2 status; the Foundation itself cannot receive tax-deductible donations directly, and distributions from the Named Fund are made only to entities holding Deductible Gift Recipient Item 1 status. The directors and I do not draw a wage from the Foundation; therefore, aside from an administrative fee of less than 3%, all donations go towards building the leaders Australia needs.
This article is general information about a national statistical collection. It is not legal, financial or clinical advice, and it does not represent the views of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the Department of Defence, or the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. Every factual claim is sourced below. Readers seeking authoritative guidance on the Census should consult the ABS directly at abs.gov.au.
Bain Dohne
SOURCES
1. Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Less than 100 days to the 2026 Census”, media release, 7 May 2026. abs.gov.au
2. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2026 Census Privacy Statement; and 2026 Census of Population and Housing Census Data Collection Notice. abs.gov.au
3. Australian Bureau of Statistics, “2021 Census will help deliver better outcomes for veterans”, media release, 28 June 2022. abs.gov.au
4. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census Dictionary 2021, “Australian Defence Force service (ADFP)”. abs.gov.au
5. Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Outcomes of the 2026 Census topic review”, 17 February 2025 — “Service with the Australian Defence Force” listed among existing topics with no change for the 2026 Census. abs.gov.au
6. Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, “Royal Commission calls for census to capture more data on veterans”, media release, 27 April 2023, including reference to the Interim Report estimate of more than 220,000 living Australians who served prior to 1985.
7. Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, Final Report, delivered 9 September 2024; and “Royal Commission’s Final Report is a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ chance to save veterans’ lives”, media release, 9 September 2024 (Commissioner Dr Peggy Brown).
8. Department of Defence, “Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide”; and Department of Veterans’ Affairs, “Government’s response to the Royal Commission’s Final Report”, 2 December 2024.
9. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census and Statistics Act 1905, section 19 secrecy provisions, as described in ABS privacy and confidentiality material. abs.gov.au; legislation.gov.au
Comments