Australians will still have to fill out a census form, but maybe less frequently than every five years.
The Abbott government is considering a suite of proposed changes to the census.
That's because the Australian Bureau of Statistics does not believe it offers value for money in its current form.
New Australian statistician David Kalisch says the 2011 survey of every household cost $400 million to produce, employing 43,000 temporary workers.
The census increasingly was having a more modest input in decisions about such issues as electoral boundaries and community services provisions, he told a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra on Thursday.
Mr Kalisch believes there is a different way to configure the statistical approach to the census, but declined to give details while the bureau's proposals are with the government.
However, he noted the census was conducted every 10 years in the US, UK and most European countries.
The ABS does not intend to follow Canada which faced problems when it changed to a voluntary census.
Labor senator Sam Dastyari was exasperated by a lack of detail about the proposals, saying there was a serious amount of legitimate community concern.
"How do you build trust and faith when the one interaction all Australian people have with ABS gets chopped," he said.
Mr Kalisch responded by saying the ABS was not recommending abolishing the census.
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said the government was considering the proposals.
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