Clearly some folk, with a single indigenous forbear, forty-fifty generations ago are adding their names to the census as aboriginal? Because they feel aboriginal?

Therefore, and with regard to claimed indigenous specific benefits/land rights etc. DNA testing that proves they are not less than 25% aboriginal ought to be mandatory!

With those failing the test asked to show cause, why they shouldn't be charged with fraud?
Alan B.

The number or Tasmanian Aboriginals in 1800 was estimated at no more than 6000.

This had to decreased to no more than 1000 by 1828. In 1832 this number had shrunk to 200. Robinson gathered 178, by 1834 ( from memory ), to go to Flinders Island.

He believed that he missed no more that 3 or 4 People.

When I went to School , our Black Arm band History taught us that we , Australians , had managed to wipe out an entire Race of People, Then we rounded it off with the Tasmanian Tiger , for good measure.

What was that the truth , then , or was it the Propaganda that we are used to nowadays ?

The definition without a % is total rubbish. In 100 years time , will we have Aboriginality at 1/1280th ?

Yes !

25% should be the bottom limit.

I am pretty sure that I am a 1/12,560th Roman Citizen. I will identify as one and if I cam find a few fellow 'true ' Romans like me... then.... Let's get the Empire back !

Then, there is the Anglo-Saxon Part of me from the 'Dark Ages'... Hmmmmm

I would say that DISHONESTY is “behind Australia's exploding indigenous population”. Our peculiar politicians, slaves to minorities and the extreme Left have made it worthwhile for any Tom, Dick or Harry to claim connection to aboriginality. There's money and benefits in it! The push for 'recognition' in the Constitution makes the idea even more attractive. What dishonest people would not want to get their hands on 60% of Australian land?

Even some genuine claimants are wondering how there are so many of them in Tasmania when the story has always been that they were virtually wiped out in that state!

This is what you get when you concoct an idea that a tiny section of the the Australian population should be treated differently from the majority.

Anyway, are we to believe the Census, which is the biggest cock up of the century?

Yes, it's quite amazing that the Indigenous population grew since the 2011 Census by 101,000, while the number of births was only about 73,000. Clearly nobody died in those five years, AND many people were born at 8, and 16, and 37.

OR there was a process of re-identification which added about 10 % to the 2011 population. In that case, for what it's worth, the 'real' population was more like 590,000 than 649,000.

But this process of re-identification has been going on at every Census since 1971. What it signifies is that any judgments or predictions about Indigenous population are worthless. After all, it's possible that most of the 'population growth' since 1971 has been through re-identification. Or, in the case of many non-Indigenous people, identification.

It's possible on that basis to cautiously suggest that the population has barely doubled, not risen six times, in forty five years.

But one feature stands out: the number of births from one Census to the next - if one controls for that re-identification factor - may actually be declining, and by about 1 % p.a.

Another feature of the 2016 Census data is that the NT Indigenous population may not have risen at all, or at most by only about 4 % in five years. Again, there were fewer NT births in those five years than in previous Census periods. The proportion of Indigenous people registered on Census night as being in the NT declined by nearly 2 %. There are more indigenous people in Greater Sydney than in the NT. The balance is shifting rapidly towards a city, even a metropolitan, population, away from a remote population

Re-identification has disrupted analysis of Indigenous population since 1971.

Let's look at 'age-cohorts': groups of people born within the same age-range - i.e. 0 to 4 years old at one Census, 5 to 9 years old at the next, 10 to 14 at the next, and so on. In the Censuses, we can track their growth in numbers over time [What ?! 'Growth' in numbers, you ask ? How is that possible ?! Yes indeed.]

Going back to the 1971 Census, and the youngest age-cohort, those aged between birth, 0 yrs, and 4: they numbered 18,733 in 1971. In the next Census, when they were aged 5 to 9 years, they had multiplied - miracle of miracles ! - to 24,106.

By the 1996 Census, they had given birth to many others at later ages, and the age-cohort, now aged in their late twenties, numbered 33,741. In 2006, there were still 30,873 of the original 18,733 left, even with inevitable mortality.

Something similar has happened to every age-cohort in every succeeding Census: age-cohorts grow in numbers, despite any mortality. But if one were to take the 2016 figures as a sort of benchmark, and work backwards, building in a bit of mortality (using the ABS' mortality tables), clearly the numbers in each age-cohort should increase as we move backwards, from 2016 all the way back to 1971. If we do that, the total numbers at each previous Census increase. If we do it right back to 1971, the total then was more like 350,000 than 115,000.

In other words, Indigenous population has barely kept pace with the total Australian population numbers, perhaps slipped a little behind. So perhaps the Indigenous population has made up about 2.8 % ever since 1971, and perhaps it was even higher back then.

If this is confusing, phone someone from the ABS and explain it to them.

Joe

Joe,

I'm my own Grandpa, and living in an apple tree in Tasmania!