WITH Census night fast approaching, Shire President Wayne Sanford has reminded locals of the importance of filling out the simple form.
Mr Sanford said the census is extremely important from an urban planning and infrastructure perspective.
“It’s really important to understand what the demographics are with forward planning,” he said.
“It’s important to know this information, so that communities like Collie have got the right infrastructure and services in place, especially around things like health and education.
“I think its also important from a local government perspective for us to understand where we are in terms of population growth.
Mr Sanford said a lot of things are influenced by urban growth.
“Federal assistance grants, and how much we receive from state and federal governments is generally based on what your population is and what it is projected to be,” he said.
“So it’s important for us if we are to grow to understand what that demographic is what our socio-economic environment is here in Collie, and what the needs of that environment are as a community so that we can orderly fund for it and make sure we have a sustainable environment to live in.”
Census Engagement Manager Deeahn O’Brien said Collie is a drop off area, which means paper forms will be arriving on door steps in early August.
“We are really pushing for online completion this year, so on that paper form will be a code to go online and do your census,” she said.
“If you have a PC or a tablet you can do all of that by visiting the ABS website and in 2011 when the last census was on 35 per cent of people did it online.”
“Our target this year which we are pretty confident about is 65 per cent online completion.
Census night is on August 9.