The Australian Bureau of Statistics intends to supply hours of fun on the NSW North Coast in 2016

This is what the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) told the nation in 2011:

Home internet access is more common in households with higher incomes. The proportion of households in the highest income quintile with internet access was 95%, compared with 55% for households in the lowest income quintile.

Twenty-nine per cent of those aged 55 to 64 years of age and sixty-three per cent of those 65 years of age and older do not access the Internet.

In June 2010 there were 1.2 million people aged 55 to 64 years of age in Australia and most lived outside capital cities.

There were 3.01 million people aged 65 years and over in Australia at June 2010 and between 17% to 20% of these live on the NSW North Coast.

This is what the ABS told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2012 about the next national census:

In 2016 all that will be delivered is a letter, which will include details of web access and a password. Only if someone is determined not to complete the census online will they be posted a form, after phoning a 1800 number. Only if nothing is returned will an ABS employee visit.

Oh my goodness! Of course I promise to keep a suitably upgraded home PC and Internet connection no matter how expensive that becomes and, yes I’ll go online and type in the circumstances of my life and income. What fun to be personally available to nasty or just plain curious hackers in this way – along with my assigned password details and IP address.

However, by 2016 I along with many of my friends and neighbours will be that much older and perhaps a little more forgetful. We may just decide that negotiating an online survey is now too difficult. There will be little in the way of departmental budgetary savings flowing from us I suspect.