Uniting leagues around one purpose and cause while at the same time helping and discovering areas in the country where football participation is struggling is the solution that the nationwide census questionnaire makes possible for local football.
We've already seen a result of this improvement from the last census survey in 2021, which highlighted the need for participation and the lack thereof among Australia's disabled community through the AFL Barwon league in Geelong.
Emily Walker, the National Spokesperson of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, spoke in an interview with Zero Hanger about the impact the census has already made for local football with the implementation of the Barwon League.
“The AFL Barwon used census data to understand where people living with a disability were based across that region, and that informed how they set and developed this,” Walker said.
“Before that local league existed, players had to regularly make the round trip to Melbourne for the game, so census data has really backed that local initiative and helped to remove quite a big barrier to participation."
Marking the first all-abilities football and netball leagues in the world, the Barwon league allows all players with a disability to play, offering contact and non-contact games depending on their needs.
It continues to grow each year by removing a two-hour barrier for participation for players making the round trip to Melbourne, allowing access locally for those in Geelong who participate.
When asked about difficulties that came with forming the league, Welker stressed: “I think without census data there would have been a whole lot more challenges, and that goes across lots of different businesses, lots of different charities”, that are sometimes not streamlined enough.
The AFL Barwon League relied on the localised population data from the 2021 census to map out which leagues were expanding and those that needed clubs in areas where there was little to no participation.
Being able to identify where these dry spots or lack of facilities in those areas can then allow them to be fast-tracked through grants and development for the areas that are struggling the most.
“Because the census data is a local-level piece, it means that we can understand who people are and where people are, which is so important to understand what is needed and where,” Walker said.
