Even though I have lived in Australia for a large proportion of my life I have never had any need to refer to Australian records as all my ancestors were born in the UK. Your question prompted me to search the internet for old Australian censuses information and I found there is virtually no reference to any 19th century Australian censuses.

In my search I came across an article which explained the reasons why.

The strange history and problematic future of the Australian census.

The individual records of most colonial and all Commonwealth censuses are not to be found in the libraries or archives. The destruction of original census records in Australia has been the result of misadventure and government policies reflecting great fear about the impact of popular privacy concerns on public compliance with the census operations. This paper explores the history behind the anomalous practice of destroying census records in Australia, and poses questions about the role of the census in the writing of histories of Australian people and Australian communities...

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-33252269_ITM

I wonder where would we be with our family history research if Australia's mother country had adopted the same policies!

In contrast, from Australian convict records you are able to gain much information about a person. These records are well preserved the same as the birth, marriage and death records are.

Australian birth, marriage and death certificates can contain lots of useful information for the family historian. Death certificates, in particular, can be very informative and often include the names of children and the length of time spent in Australia.

Hi All,

The Australian Bureau Of Statistics web site at www.abs.gov.au may shed some light on this subject.

This is the Media Release of June 6 2006.

All we have to do is live long enough to make use of it.

Regards,
Graeme[Perth, W.A.]

2006 CENSUS TIME CAPSULE – MEDIA BACKGROUNDER
The Census Time Capsule is being conducted as part of the 2006 Census of Population and Housing. People can elect to have their personally-identified 2006 Census information kept on microfilm and securely held by the National Archives of Australia (NAA) for 99 years.

This information will not be made available to anyone until the year 2105. The first national Census was conducted in 1911. Until 2001, the practice in Australia had been to destroy all personally-identified information from a Census once the statistical processing had been completed and no personally-identified information exists from any Australian Census before 2001.

For the 2001 Census, everyone was given the opportunity to have their personally-identified information kept by National Archives of Australia. Census information from 2001, for those people who gave their consent, is now securely stored and awaiting release in 2100 when the time capsule is opened.

The Census Time Capsule is not a “capsule” as such, but secure storage areas within the NAA’s purpose built repositories where the films will be stored in archival quality containers. These special areas are accessible only to authorised NAA staff.