Counting Australians

My friends in Adelaide told me someone counted how many people were living in Australia on 9th August 2016.

Why would anyone want to know that?

Poms are not allowed to answer with snide comments. A country that has jilted its EU partners, dumped the French and their unbuilt nuclear plants and insulted the Chinese nation is not allowed to be snide any more.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics says the Census will collect important information about Australia’s people and their housing. That sounds like they will ignore the family with a plot on Peacock Place, Adelaide whose house isn’t built yet.

Everyone counts, in every sense of the phrase.

We will count anything, including Australians on a quiet day.

We count our possessions so that after a burglary we know how many items the insurance company is refusing to replace. Surgical teams count the pieces of equipment after an operation to determine how many are still inside the patient. Air cabin crews count us onto planes to stop stowaways and to identify whose baggage will be thrown off before departure. Why do they not count us off the plane at the end of the flight? Do they check the toilets, look under the seats and explore the overhead lockers after we have disembarked to block anyone attempting an immediate return flight?

I have counted children onto buses at the end of a trip away, hoping to bring back the same number I took out. Head counting alone didn’t work if one of mine had swapped places with a kid from another bus going to the other end of the country.

The rich count their money while they tell the poor to count their blessings. The sick count the number of days before they can reach a doctor who then starts with ‘you really should have come in sooner’. Managers and coaches count Olympic team members returning to oppressive regimes and count their days if any have jumped ship and claimed asylum.

Count on it, counting is a human preoccupation. We count to start races, to stop boxers inflicting brain damage, to launch flights into space, to decide who wins, to incriminate criminals, to assign value, to indicate importance, to judge seniority, to pass the time, to fall asleep. We blissfully count our chickens, count our blessings, count the cost, count the days, count out as well as count in, not to mention counting up and keeping count.

The government counts us to decide who should pay taxes. We are distracted from this essential purpose of the census by forms that are scattered with a variety of elements that have nothing to do with paying taxes.

Entering the details for six-week-old baby boy named Archibald Melchisedec Bi’nh Oesophagus Heritance MacMurphy living in a suburb of Adelaide is a challenge when confronted with some of the questions on the census form.

Imagine the difficulty of identifying his ‘language spoken’ other than with the answer, ‘loud wails when he is wet, empty, tired, too hot or sitting in a pile of poo’. On the other hand, that might be a suitable reply for some adults. 'Religious affiliation’ is not yet his personal choice and he is not guided in choosing a spiritual path by listing his father’s spiritual rebirth as a member of ‘The Latter Day Church of Beer and Steak’. ‘Marital status’ is irrelevant to a six-week-old unless child marriage has reached a new level of forward planning. ‘Educational level’ is hardly pinpointed by, ‘hoping to do the best we can for the little fella by getting him into Flinders early on and skipping secondary school’. Pinning down his ethic group might be better answered if an extra box were added to the list of possible ethic groups with the title, ‘most of the above at some point in the last five generations’.

Counting does nothing to improve the quality of life of those counted. Hearing the disembodied voice announcing you are ‘eleventh in the queue’ does nothing to ease your impatience. Being a member of the losing 48% who voted Remain in the UK Referendum does not allow you to act superior as the country goes to hell in a handcart. Coming fourth in an Olympic final is as useless a money-spinner as coming last.

We might take the counting more seriously if it could bring about improvement. We can weigh a pig as many times as we like but that won’t make it any fatter. What we do to fatten the pig is what counts, as does what we intend to do with the fattened pig.

Count on it that someone is counting you right now. Are you just a number to them or do they have something in mind for you? A sobering thought even for those not yet resident on Peacock Place.