Facebook file/ March 16: Oz drive to make the social network a religion
Fair dinkum! People can put down what they want in the God slot, says the Australian census chief
Paul Lowe , head of the Australian census programme said the religious question was optional and he had no problem with the way people answered it.
"Obviously we want people to be serious when they're filling in their census form, but if people want to report that way, I'm not going to tell them they can't report their religion as they see it," he said.
A Facebook push had already started in New Zealand and he expected it to spread to Australia. But he pointed out, "There's a bit of misinformation out there. People think if they can get more than 20,000 responses, Facebook would therefore be recognised as an official religion. That's not the case because there's certain criteria you've got to meet if you're going to be recognised as an official religion."
About 71,000 people identified as Jedi in the 2001 census, similar to the number naming the Salvation Army. Facebook, of course, hadn't been born.
The census will be held on August 9. Mr Lowe hoped that up to 40 per cent of households would fill out their forms online - up from 9 per cent in 2006. This year marks 100 years of census taking in Australia.
In New Zealand, Jedi emerged as a religion in 2001, with around 53,000 people giving the Star Wars group as their religion. "With the next census only a month away, concern is growing that Facebook may dominate Jedi and Rugby as the new religion with most popular appeal in New Zealand," said a local commentator.
The tally in 2006, saw Jedi followers down to 20000, equivalent to Islam, the Jewish faith, Assembly of God, and the Church of Scientology. The Jedi Church is said to be worried about the possibility of Facebook 
becoming the new popular religion of NZ. Census organisers Statistics NZ put the Jedi faith into an "answer understood but not counted" category. The organisers and the Jedi church agree, however, that the religion question should involve some
 sort of scripture, faith structure, ritual, or deity. Although many people have a daily ritual of scanning or updating their status on Facebook, this is probably not the sort of religious ritual they mean.