Good quality data on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are needed to assess the effectiveness of programs and interventions, and to evaluate policies that are designed to improve the status of, and service delivery to, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Authored by AIHW, & ABS.The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population of Australia was estimated at 458,500 in June 2001, growing to 492,700 in June 2005, according to the ‘low series projection’ (ABS 2004d). The population has a younger age profile than the remainder of the Australian population - with a median age of 21 years compared with 36 years - and has higher fertility and mortality rates.
Good quality data on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are needed to assess the effectiveness of programs and interventions, and to evaluate policies that are designed to improve the status of, and service delivery to, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Evidence-based approaches to inform policy and program development continue to be of paramount importance. This has resulted in growing demand for high-quality, regularly reported information about Indigenous people, at a range of geographic levels. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are diverse in languages and cultures. They live in large cities, in small country towns, in remote areas of Australia, in the tropics, in desert areas, and on many isolated islands. This diversity in culture, conceptualisation of health and wellbeing, family structure, living arrangements and the relatively high proportion living in remote areas create practical and statistical challenges for the collection of data on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Several of these issues are discussed in the relevant sections of this publication.
This paper consists of four parts. The first part discusses recent developments in national strategic information initiatives and future plans in the health, housing and community services areas. The second part describes recent and forthcoming statistical reports on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The third part provides information on Indigenous identification and population estimation. The fourth part provides information on the quality and availability of data collected on Indigenous people from the Censuses, surveys and administrative records.
There has been significant progress in the availability and quality of statistical information on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples over the last decade in Australia. This is related to a number of factors.