Losing our religion? Australia would no longer be majority religious if format of census question changed, survey finds

Ahead of the 2026 Australian census, a new survey has found more than half of people (54%) selected ‘no’ when asked ‘do you have a religion?’ Photograph: AA World Travel Library/Alamy View image in fullscreen Ahead of the 2026 Australian census, a new survey has found more than half of people (54%) selected ‘no’ when asked ‘do you have a religion?’ Photograph: AA World Travel Library/Alamy Losing our religion? Australia would no longer be majority religious if format of census question changed, survey finds Ahead of the census in August, campaign group suggests current poll design overstates the nation’s religiousness Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Australia would no longer be a majority religious country if the format of a question in the census was changed, according to a new survey. The Essential Media poll tested the existing census format, where people choose from a list that includes the most common religions, “no religion” and “other”. At the 2021 census, about 39% of people selected “no religion” from that list. ‘Techno in a monastery – are you ready?’ The Greek priest whose doom metal album is the year’s hippest record Read more In the new survey, released ahead of the 2026 Australian census on 11 August, 43% of people selected “no religion” when asked in the same format. But when given a “yes/no” option first (“do you have a religion?”), followed by a text box to fill in if “yes” was selected, 54% of respondents picked “no”. That translates to about 2 million adults. The poll was commissioned by the Census – Not Religious? Mark No Religion campaign, which says the format being used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is overstating the religiousness of Australia, and understating the numbers of those without any religion. Spokesperson Michael Dove, a self-confessed “demography nerd”, said the census was the “gold standard” of data needed to “inform debate, policy and ultimately funding decisions”. “We trust the ABS to deliver us high-quality data that we can rely on and be confident that the right decisions are being made on the basis of the right data,” he said. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email The campaign website lists a range of surveys that have found the no religion cohort to be higher than the census’s 39%. The religion question has long been a source of contention, and in some cases humour. In 2001, more than 70,000 Australians declared themselves Jedi Knights, inspired to Jediism by the Star Wars franchise. Pastafarians , members of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster who use colanders as religious headwear, say they have checked the “no religion” box to avoid being counted as Christians. There has been a steady decline in Christianity over the past 50 years, according to the ABS, but it was still the most common religion at the last census. Of those surveyed, 43.9% listed Christianity as their religion, while 38.9% ticked “no religion”. The number of people from faiths