A survey has found something surprising: whether Australians say they have a religion depends heavily on how the question is asked. Researchers tested two approaches. One showed people a list of religions and asked them to pick one — or choose 'no religion' from the list. The other asked a simple yes-or-no question: do you have a religion? The results differed sharply. With the list format, 43% said no religion. With the yes-or-no format, 54% said no religion The Guardian.

This matters because Australia's official census is coming on 11 August 2026. The census is the count governments use to decide how much money to spend on religious education, chaplaincy services in schools and hospitals, and community programs. If the question changes, the numbers change — and that ripples through policy and budgets. Shifting from 43% to 54% non-religious is equivalent to roughly 2 million Australians answering differently based purely on question design The Guardian.

Why does the question format make such a big difference? When people see a long list, they have to hunt for the answer they want — and 'no religion' gets overlooked more often. When you ask "Do you have a religion?" as a straight yes-or-no question first, people answer that question directly before choosing a specific religion if the answer is yes. This is a well-known pattern in survey research: the way you frame a question influences how people answer it.

The survey also found differences between age groups and education levels. Younger Australians aged 18-34 were less likely to claim a religion (34%), while university-educated people were more likely to do so (50%). These patterns match what researchers around the world have found: younger people and people with higher education tend to identify less with religion.

Here is something important to keep in mind: this survey only asked adults. The real census asks adults to answer for children too — often based on household tradition rather than what the child personally believes. Children's responses typically look different from adults', so any prediction about what the full census would show needs to account for that.

The background is that Australia's official statistics agency considered changing the religion question after the last census in 2021. Back then, 43.9% of Australians said Christian and 38.9% said no religion The Guardian. Bishops from the Catholic Church actually wrote to the Prime Minister in June 2026 to say they were concerned about any changes to how the religion question is worded. That tells you something important: churches understand that the numbers matter to them — they affect how much funding religious education gets and what role religion plays in public life The Saturday Paper.

What is striking about this situation is that nobody really disagrees about beliefs. Both sides — advocates for secular Australia and religious institutions — are fighting about how to measure something, not what to believe. And both sides have a reason to care: if more people register as non-religious, churches get less public funding and less visible influence. If more register as religious, the opposite occurs. It is a numbers game with real consequences.

The 2026 census will stick with the current list-based format. No change has been approved. This survey is being used by advocates who want a format change to show what might happen — but it is not a preview of what the actual census will show. In coming weeks, you will probably see the 54% figure quoted in debates about religion in Australia. Remember that it comes from a different question design, not the official question.