Drinking alcohol has edged out all other hobbies to become the sole favourite pastime of 98 per cent of Australians, a national hobby census released today has found.

A census analyst described the results as “mostly unsurprising”, noting that drinking has topped the list for the past 140 years.

“What is alarming, however, is that drinking seems to be the only hobby most people have these days,” she said.

“In previous years we saw dual hobbyists, who enjoyed things like video games, pokies or even pornography while drinking. But now it seems people prefer their drinking to be undiluted by any distractions.”

The two per cent of Australians who did not nominate drinking as their top choice of pastime were more rounded, according to the report, which found that they gave equal weighting to “eating pizza”, “stealing stuff” and “smoking bongs”.