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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Fear and Greed Daily Interview. I'm sure Ailma.

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Speaker 1: This week we heard that the Australian Buwerau of Statistics

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Speaker 1: has chosen sixty thousand homes to take part in a

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Speaker 1: test census to make sure the real event next year

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Speaker 1: runs without incident. For the first time, it will include

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Speaker 1: questions about sexual orientation and gender for people over sixteen.

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Speaker 1: The Census is a nationwide count of household information. It's

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Speaker 1: conducted every five years. It provides a snapshot of Australies

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Speaker 1: population and to help me delve into why we do it,

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Speaker 1: what to expect from it, I welcome to the show.

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Speaker 1: Harry Harrah Pree Cannon, chief data scientist for the Demographic Group. Harry,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fear and Greed.

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Speaker 2: Hello Sean.

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Speaker 1: Why is the census so important?

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Speaker 2: So? The census is kind of a big deal, especially here,

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Speaker 2: and it matters more than most people realize. Census data

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Speaker 2: decides where are schools, hospitals, eagedcare, homes, transport services go.

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Speaker 2: It affects how much funding new local areas gets and

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Speaker 2: whether you subborb gets a new childcare center or a

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Speaker 2: community park. All these kinds of big decisions are based

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Speaker 2: on census data. So even if you only think about

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Speaker 2: the census once every five years, it's quietly shaping the

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Speaker 2: world around us.

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Speaker 1: Okay, well, yeah, I've learned something there already. I just

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Speaker 1: didn't realize quite that is a massive impact that the

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Speaker 1: census has. Is it timely enough? I suppose it's the question.

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Speaker 2: It is timely enough? And that's what's really special about

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Speaker 2: Australia's census. Unlike many countries that only run their censors

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Speaker 2: every ten years, like the US does it once every

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Speaker 2: ten years, we do ours every five which means we

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Speaker 2: get fresher data and can respond more quickly to social

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Speaker 2: and economic changes. And census is pretty inclusive. It doesn't

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Speaker 2: just count our citizens and our permanent residents, but it

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Speaker 2: also counts tourists, international students, whether you're a temporary visa holder.

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Speaker 2: Our census counts everyone, and that gives us a real

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Speaker 2: insight into how things are in Australia.

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Speaker 1: Okay, the Australian census. Is that typical of other censuses

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Speaker 1: around the world? Or do we tend to gather more information?

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Speaker 1: How does that all work?

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Speaker 2: We do get a lot more information compared to other

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Speaker 2: censuses in the world. The US only has twelve questions,

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Speaker 2: but our census it has bought sixty three questions and

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Speaker 2: the test rund that we are doing right now it

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Speaker 2: is actually a change that was looked into from the

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Speaker 2: previous census. So what happens in between our censues is

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Speaker 2: that a committee sits down, they really go through our data.

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Speaker 2: They try to understand what can we add that's more current,

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Speaker 2: more relevant. For example, they're adding a new category as

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Speaker 2: a response to one of our questions, which is tell

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Speaker 2: us about how you travel to work, and they are

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Speaker 2: going to add travel by e bike as one of

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Speaker 2: the options.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: Now I have never seen as a data scientist this

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Speaker 2: being done in any other country other than Australia.

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Speaker 1: What about the issue I mean is something that has

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Speaker 1: had a bit of publicity is a question on sexual

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Speaker 1: orientation and gender. It was something that was discussed last year,

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Speaker 1: but if I'm right, the government didn't particularly want to

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Speaker 1: push the issue ahead of the election. Why is it

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Speaker 1: important that we get that sort of information.

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Speaker 2: I think that helps us understand a lot about these

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Speaker 2: communities that are less talked about. Census not only gives

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Speaker 2: us the count of people and the age, but it

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Speaker 2: also talks about the educational backgrounds, what sort of family

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Speaker 2: setups they are and where they're living, or how they're

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Speaker 2: doing economically, and this gives us an insight into how

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Speaker 2: to service these cohortes better.

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Speaker 1: Broadly, I mean we've got to go to a break

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Speaker 1: in a moment. We might talk about specific things like

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Speaker 1: birth rates and international students in housing in that after

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Speaker 1: the break, but just broadly, before we go to the break,

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Speaker 1: how is Australia changing or is that too broad a

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Speaker 1: question to actually ask?

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Speaker 2: That is too broad a question to ask, But I

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Speaker 2: think Australia is one of the leading examples worldwide on

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Speaker 2: how you can harness the data and builz smarter environments.

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Speaker 2: And I don't see this happening anywhere else in the world.

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Speaker 2: And the other thing about the Australian census is while

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Speaker 2: most data in other countries are not publicly easily accessible. Now,

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Speaker 2: if you want to know about your suburb, for example,

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Speaker 2: you can just go on avi's website and there is

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Speaker 2: a tool called quick Stats. You type in your suburb

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Speaker 2: and it will give you all the basic information, oh wow,

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Speaker 2: about how your suburb is doing, the income profile, what

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Speaker 2: sort of occupations are there, including religious affiliation, it's not

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Speaker 2: just the big companies that can benefit out of this.

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Speaker 2: I might plan to start a new ice cream joint

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Speaker 2: in my suburb and this data can be useful for me.

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Speaker 1: Fantastic. Stay with me, Harry, We'll be back in a moment.

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Speaker 1: I'm speaking to the demographic groups, Harry Harah Priat Kennan.

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Speaker 1: I want to get to some specific challenges. International students,

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Speaker 1: migration a constant, constant debate in Australia. So bad, it's.

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Speaker 2: Good, and it's not my personal opinion. Data sus it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that's what I want to know. What's the

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Speaker 1: data side.

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Speaker 2: So when you look at our migration, I'm going to

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Speaker 2: break this down to you, or I might even ask

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Speaker 2: you a question here, what percentage of our migration do

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Speaker 2: you think is permanent in nature?

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Speaker 1: I'd I would have a lot more tourist international students,

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Speaker 1: many many more than permanent in nature our guests.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so the permanent is only eleven percent. So when

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Speaker 2: you say we are taking four hundred thousand people or

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Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty thousand people, we are not bringing

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Speaker 2: them all here forever. So what are all these temporary

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Speaker 2: tourists and migrants actually contributing to US as a nation.

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Speaker 2: International education is our top four service expert. It's a

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Speaker 2: billion dollar industry and international education also directly affects tourism.

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Speaker 2: Without international education, the Australian tourism industry would be one

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Speaker 2: third of what it is today.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: Plus we have temporary workers who help us plug our

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Speaker 2: skills shortage. Our unemployment rate is set an all time loan,

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Speaker 2: so we're not essentially getting migrants to take up the

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Speaker 2: jobs of all locals, but we are rather getting migrants

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Speaker 2: to fill the gaps in our workforce. So it's a

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Speaker 2: completely win situation for Australia. And this is going to

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Speaker 2: be the case in every other first world top income

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Speaker 2: countries as well. And that's because globally we are aging

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Speaker 2: and most developed nations are also aging very rapidly, which

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Speaker 2: means we are going to be having fewer and fewer workers.

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Speaker 2: So every country will now get on the race to

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Speaker 2: get migrants so they can sustain their population growth.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so this brings us under structural aging and birth rates.

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Speaker 1: What is the Australian birth rate trendy?

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Speaker 2: So our current birth rate is at one point eight

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Speaker 2: and it's trending downwards. It has been trending downwards for

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Speaker 2: the past three four decades. This is something that needs

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Speaker 2: a lot of structural change if it has to go up.

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Speaker 2: So the replacement level is two point two and we

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Speaker 2: are well below that. So we will actually see in

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Speaker 2: the late twenty forties that our natural increase starts going

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Speaker 2: into the negatives and migration is the only component that

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Speaker 2: will help Australia's population group.

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Speaker 1: Okay, the housing sector another big political issue. It was

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Speaker 1: the last election the government's National Hasing Accord wants to

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Speaker 1: build two unred and forty thousand homes a year. Where

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Speaker 1: now we need that. Do demographics tell us anything about

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Speaker 1: what we need to do with housing?

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Speaker 2: So the whole issue about housing is, see, we have

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Speaker 2: a lot of space. That's the reality. When you compare

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Speaker 2: most Australian cities to other cities like London or San Francisco,

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Speaker 2: you compare anywhere our population density is much much lower

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Speaker 2: than that, and we also have a land area that's

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Speaker 2: much bigger. You can take New York for example, it

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Speaker 2: has around eight hundred people approximately per square kilometer and

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Speaker 2: the entire city is only one thousand square kilometers in size.

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Speaker 2: If you take Melbourne, it's twelve thousand kilometers square kilometers

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Speaker 2: and our population density is about four hundred and fifty

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Speaker 2: so we can see that we don't have a spacing issue.

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Speaker 2: What we have is a policy issue. Our population growth

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Speaker 2: and our migration policy is not really communicating with our

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Speaker 2: housing policy is the issue here, and we also need

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Speaker 2: to build more density housing, especially in areas that's having

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Speaker 2: a turnover of this temporary population. Like if you look

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Speaker 2: at our job hubs and university corridors, these places require

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Speaker 2: more short term rental, higher density housing compared to what

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Speaker 2: we are actually building.

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Speaker 1: Harry, tell me, do you get excited as a demographer

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Speaker 1: when there's a new sensors coming up?

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Speaker 2: I definitely get very excited.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of Christmas once every five years.

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Speaker 2: Yes. Firstly, it's my bread and butter. The other thing

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Speaker 2: is when the last senses came out, there were new

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Speaker 2: questions around long term health conditions and mental health and everything,

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Speaker 2: and there's always new data to explore, so it's not

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Speaker 2: the same thing that's happening every five years. So there

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Speaker 2: are some trends that really change a lot. But then

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Speaker 2: there are these new trends that open up new avenues

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Speaker 2: for research and debate and that's really exciting.

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Speaker 1: Fantastic, Harry, thank you very much for talking to Fear

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Speaker 1: and Greed.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: That's Harry. Harah Prier Kennan, chief data scientist for the

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Speaker 1: Demographics Group. This is the Fear and Greed Business Interview.

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Speaker 1: Join us every morning for the full episode of Fear

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