Conspiracy theorists are in a lather about how to respond to the 2021 census: should they object to having their details recorded, use it to make a political statement, or dutifully fill it out to protect their country against paranoid fears?

It is compulsory to complete the census. There are fines for those people who fail to complete it or provide false or misleading statements. Failing to fill it out means government departments and agencies may underfund services and infrastructure because they underestimate the number of Australians who need them.

Despite the consequences, anti-vaxxers, sovereign citizens, the far right, QAnon believers and other anti-government conspiracy theorists have spent weeks debating about the best way to subvert the census — or not. 

Sceptical of authority, these groups believe the census is an insidious method of authoritarian mass surveillance rather than an ordinary form of data collection used to inform government decision-making.

The most popular response has been to conscientiously object by returning envelopes containing a physical copy of the census to sender.

One popular image of an envelope defaced with “The census is now cancelled until you stop playing games with our lives” has been shared hundreds of times on Facebook, including by pages like the former senator Rod Culleton’s Great Australian Party, and by prominent conspiracy theorists such as Karen Brewer.

One QAnon believer suggested writing a colourful note on the envelope: “how about we all write on the census in capital letters WE THE PEOPLE YOUR MASTERS, ARE AWARE THE GOVERNMENT AND ALL ITS DEPARTMENTS AND THE MEDIA HAVE BEEN INFILTRATED BY SATANIC PEDOPHILES, EXPECT US WE ARE COMING FOR YOU.”

Ironically, some argue this action will help their political cause rather than ensure that they are underrepresented. “This is a brilliant way to protest for all Australians. Our voices will be heard by doing this,” one user wrote. 

They’re not worried about the fines either. In Telegram channels and Facebook pages dedicated to conspiracy theories, they falsely claim they can’t be punished for failing to fill out the forms because envelopes are addressed to “the resident” and not their actual names.

Others have seized on the opportunity to use the census as a platform. Some anti-vaxxers are trying to organise others to claim their religion or gender as “unvaccinated”, pointing to past social campaigns to get people to declare their religion as “Jedi”.  

“On the census we must put our religion as ‘unvaccinated’ if we get 10,000 people we can get across,” one person wrote in a popular anti-vaccine Telegram channel.  

Meanwhile, older conspiracy theories have begun to recirculate. In 2016 a scare campaign run by racists and other right-wing groups claimed Australia would soon be “officially be declared to be a Muslim country” if respondents didn’t claim they were Christian. This same meme has been reheated this year, with far-right groups trying to coordinate their members — who loathe to interact with government in any way — to fill out the forms as Christians.

Despite the excitement, there’s nothing to suggest there is a significant movement that will undermine the census. In 2016, the response rate was 94.8%, similar to the two prior.