Yes, it is only 3 more sleeps until we are forced to fill out the 5 - yearly census.

Interestingly, many other countries ask many fewer than our 60 odd questions: the US census for eg has about a dozen very basic questions.

My question regards how politically you base your answers.

For example, it was suggested to me that I should tick a particular religion so that another particular religion does not get a higher percentage of responders.

or

If you happen to be a bicycle advocate, you may ask your mates to tick that method of transport in order to win more funds for bike paths. Motoring or public transport groups may well try to similarly manufacture a particular result too.

I know several public school teachers (like me) who send their kids to private schools simply because of the dreadful under-funding of public education. A push is on for us to say our kids go to public school, in order that they get better funding so we can send our own kids there.

Then, there is the thinking that this is none of the government's business and you may not trust them that all the data is private and names are not kept on file (which makes you wonder why they collect it in the first place). If so, you may be tempted to tell a fib or two.

So, do you think the Census is a legitimate exercise or one that, by its very nature is overly intrusive and political in nature and therefore not accurate?