‘No religion’ tops all religions in last Census

December 2017

Despite a scare campaign about Australia becoming a "Muslim country", those ticking "no religion" in the Census has now overtaken the number of Catholics.

It’s the first time in Australia’s history the number of people who claim "no religion" has overtaken Catholics.

The latest Census drop showed those ticking "no religion" rose from 22.6 per cent to 29.6 per cent — nearly double the 16 per cent in 2001.

Meanwhile, those identifying as Catholic dropped from 25.3 per cent to 22.6 per cent.

The number of Christians in total still made up 51 per cent of the population, but this is much less than the 88 per cent in 1966 and 74 per cent in 1991.

Islam (2.6 per cent) and Buddhism (2.4 per cent) and Hinduism (1.9)were the next most common religions reported.

Those reporting no religion increased noticeably from 19 per cent in 2006 to 30 per cent in 2016. The largest change was between 2011 and 2016, when an additional 2.2 million people reported having no religion.

Those who did not answer the religion question, which is a non-compulsory question in the Census, was 9.6 per cent, up slightly from 9.2 per cent in 2011.

The Atheist Found-ation of Australia said it was time to stop pandering to religious minorities and to take religion out of politics. "This is an important milestone in our history. Those who marked down ‘No religion’ deserve much more recognition. We will be making our opinions known, and there’s power in numbers", the foundation said.

MAJOR FINDINGS OF THE 2016 CENSUS

• There were 23,717,421 people in Australia on Census night, which included 23,401,892 people who usually live in Australia — an 8.8 per cent increase from 2011. More than 600,000 Australians were travelling overseas.

• 1.3 million new migrants have come to Australia since 2011, hailing from some of the 180 countries of birth recorded in the Census, with China (191,000) and India (163,000) being the most common countries of birth of new arrivals.

• Of all Australian residents, just more than a quarter of people (26 per cent) said they were born overseas, with England remaining the most common country of birth other than Australia. For the first time in our history, the majority of people born overseas are now from Asia, not Europe.