DearMYRTLE - ACROSS MY DESK: 2006 Australian Census to be Saved

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ACROSS MY DESK: 2006 Australian Census to be Saved

From: RootsWeb Review: RootsWeb's Weekly E-zine
18 May 2005, Vol. 8, No. 20
(c) 1998-2005 RootsWeb.com, Inc.
http://www.rootsweb.com/

2006 Australian Census to be Saved
By Nick Vine Hall nick@vinehall.com.au
Chairman, Census Working Party; AFFHO

"Thanks to lobbying by the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations (AFFHO) the next Australian census is to be saved in the National Archives of Australia at a cost of $19 million approved recently. This is the largest government funding allocation to genealogical studies in Australia's history.

There will be a 99-year privacy embargo. AFFHO is Australia's peak genealogical organisation and represents an estimated 300,000 genealogical record users across the country. An intense 20-year political campaign by AFFHO prior to the 2001 survey, resulted in a complete reversal on a long-standing federal government policy to destroy census returns and publish numerical statistics only. Before 2001, no census survey of national coverage in Australia has survived since 1828."