Self-own here guy. Honestly, if this is the best example of use of ABS data you can find, then the census is indeed a huge waste of money.

You’re referencing an obscure line item in school funding:

Rural School Size Adjustment Factor (Reference 4)

This funding line supports small rural schools that require additional resources to reduce rural and urban school disparities.

Not surprisingly, the amount of funding is calculated by enrolments, as I’ve been saying:

Allocation = Primary enrolments × Primary per student rate + Secondary enrolments × Secondary per student rate

The only use of ABS data is to determine whether a population centre is greater than 20,000 people:

Outside provincial locations with more than 20,000 population, as defined by the ABS Urban Centres and Localities (UCL). Using ABS 2021, campuses in Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton-Mooroopna, Warrnambool, Albury-Wodonga, Mildura, Traralgon, Bacchus Marsh, Ocean Grove-Barwon Heads and Torquay-Jan Juc are ineligible.

This really is the antithesis of “census driven funding” that you’re trying to illustrate. They’re not counting 3 year olds, or newly weds, or nubile virgins.

The classification of population centre sizes could easily be determined without the census.