Australia’s leading Anglo-Celtic advocacy group has called for a question on ethnic identity to be added to the 2026 Census.
The British Australian Community (BAC) said in a statement on September 3 that ethnic diversity should be captured in the next census, and requested that the Australian Bureau of Statistics release estimates on the size of the Anglo-Celtic ethnic group, which is currently uncounted.
The BAC, a organisation dedicated to representing the interests of Anglo Australians, said it agreed with other multicultural bodies that the existing questions do not accurately measure ethnic diversity, and explained why it believes collecting ethnicity data is important.
Ethnic Diversity – 2026 Census: Key Points pic.twitter.com/dQ6ICkOMtS
— British Australian Community (@Brit_Aus_Com) September 3, 2024
“The Census data has a number of questions that act as proxy measures of Australia’s ethnic composition, such as country of birth, citizenship status, language spoken at home, and ancestry (where up to two different ancestral countries can be identified, including Australia),” the BAC said.
“Forty years ago, someone who was born in Australia, was an Australian citizen, spoke only English at home and marked their ancestry on the Census as ‘Australian’ was almost certainly of Anglo-Celtic heritage, a dinky-di Aussie.
“But after decades of mass immigration from outside of the British Isles and Europe, this is not necessarily the case any more. Now we might find that a person with those same data on the Census is actually of Chinese or Lebanese ethnicity and identifies as such in their day-to-day life.”
The BAC said that this posed a problem for ethnic lobbies, and had resulted in requests from multicultural community groups to add a Census question on “ethnic identity”, which was supported by then-immigration minister Andrew Giles, who said in 2022: “Australia does not effectively measure our diversity”.
But in April the ABS confirmed that it would not proceed with such a question, citing fears it would “create confusion” and that Australians don’t have a consistent understanding of the difference between ethnic identity and ancestry.
“Of course, our government identified no such problem with allowing people to nominate themselves as indigenous on the Census, so it would be reasonable to suspect this is not the only reason for not allowing an ethnic identity question,” the BAC said.
“Multiculturalism has forced Australians to share their national identity with people who are themselves encouraged to retain a separate ethnic identity. What would it do to Australian politics if the sleeping giant of Anglo-Australia became more aware of its own ethnic existence?”
“If millions of people who saw themselves as ‘just Australian’ were forced to confront their own ethnic background by marking themselves on the Census as Anglo-Celtic, it would force a fundamental change to the dynamic of our system of multiculturalism, forcing the state to start confronting the Anglo-shaped hole which affects all levels of government.”
As a result, Anglo Australians would begin to ask why they are expected to subsidise hand-outs to other ethnic groups, why they are treated as the source of dysfunctions in other communities but never credited for their own achievements, and why other groups are encouraged to celebrate their identity while they are effectively forbidden from celebrating theirs, the BAC said.
“Perhaps most worrying for the managerial elite in Australia, allowing an ethnic identity question in the Census would instantly clear what the ethnic makeup of Australia’s population is, with the very real possibility that Anglo-Australians are close to being a minority in the country their ancestors built, a change that has occurred in barely two generations and without their democratic consent.”
The BAC urged its supporters to contact assistant treasury minister Andrew Leigh MP, who responsible for the ABS, along with their local member of parliament and request that a question be added on ethnic identity, and that the estimates be released on the Anglo-Celtic percentage of the population and how this has changed over the past 30 years.
The call for a question on ethnic identity comes after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese caved to pressure from far-left LGBT activists and reversed a decision not to include test questions about “gender identity”.
