That's funny,

Last person that raised this subject got convicted of hate speech under 18c.

Suse,

As you say, "Is it the Indigenous people's fault if some Caucasian people pass themselves off as Aboriginal in order to secure a low interest home loan?"

No, of course not. Such benefits should be restricted to anybody in need, including Indigenous people IF they are in such need.

Thirty-odd years ago, I did an income study of a community where we had lived in the decade before. I found, to my horror, that the median household income there was equal to the Australian average. Don't confuse image with reality, Suse.

Hi SM,

I don't have the slightest problem with blue-eyed blonds identifying as Indigenous, IF they are genuine, IF they know their own families, IF most of the relations who they are aware of are Indigenous, IF they have kept in contact with them. Not necessarily with an entire community (nobody does that), but at least with their own relations.

My understanding is that some of the people involved in the situation you refer to would have had trouble doing that.

One surprise in those adjusted stats is that, even though the birth-rate is very low, and declining, the young-adult age-groups look like remaining very numerous for perhaps another twenty years. So, if anything, the rate of growth in university commencements will rise, rather than fall, from the current 7 % p.a., and flow onto graduations at around 46-50 % of commencements. So even a hundred thousand Indigenous graduates by 2030 is possible.

On the other hand, I have a feeling that many young people with some Indigenous ancestry, but little or no contact with their relations, will forgo ticking the box 'Indigenous' on the next Census forms. Perhaps it's already happening, which is why the birth-rate in the 2011 Census seems so low. Ask a proper demographer :)

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Loudmouth (Joe), "When we lived up on one community on the Murray, I roughly calculated from funerals that about a quarter of the population would be gone by forty"

From recent reunions at two primary and secondary schools I attended, those numbers are representative of populations in some country areas and not just indigenous, although the indigenous death rate could be somewhat higher.

There are all sorts of contributing factors.

Loudmouth,

So you are happy with eventually 50% of the population having as little as 1% aboriginal blood having priority access to university, welfare and health care?

Sounds like a caste system to me.

Hi SM,

No, of course not, and I don't think it will happen like that. It's possible that much of that extra 'underlying population' are working people, or are the children or grandchildren of working people, keeping out of the way of government agencies, and therefore relatively unknown to them - seizing opportunities and getting on with life.

If anything, what might happen is that those grandchildren and great-grandchildren will tend to see themselves as 'of Indigenous descent', along with all their other 'descents', and not tick the Indigenous box at all. We may see that happening at this next Census, in August.

What worries me is that two distinct populations are crystallising:

- one mainly in the 'North' and centre, welfare-dependent, poorly educated, with no likelihood of employment, flush with money but with too many opportunities to blow it: grog, fast food, ice, etc.;

- and another population in the cities, about as educated as Anglo working class people if not better, usually work-oriented, not too badly off, and getting paler and less attached to 'community' or 'identity' with every new generation.

We'll see.

Joe

Looking at those adjusted figures, what struck me first was the likelihood that there were many more Indigenous people in Australia, back in 1971 - maybe three times as many as the official figures.

I was suspicious of these figures, since my main idea is that it's been in the cities that the 'underlying population' - the 'hidden population' - was living below the radar.

So I had another look at the populations back in 1971 of New South Wales (as the most urbanised) and the Northern Territory (the most 'traditional-oriented' as we would say politely these days). In1971, the populations in those places was about the same: 23,873 to 23,381. Even then, surprisingly, there were officially more Indigenous people in NSW than in the NT, by the way.

By 2011, the official figures stood at:

NSW - 172,624; a rise of an average of more than 5 % p.a.;

NT - 56,776; an average rise of 2.5 % p.a.

But once those figures have been ceude3ly adjusted, working back from 2011, the figures for 1971 are very different:

NSW - 87,000.

NT - 45,850.

So, according to these figures, the figures for NSW doubled between 1971 and 2011, while the figures for the NT rose by barely a quarter - in forty years. Part of the difference may be explained by a couple of factors:

* inter-state migration - Indigenous people moving to NSW, especially from southern Queensland and Victoria;

* extremely high levels of inter-marriage which, if the birth-rate is maintained, boosts population rapidly. But I suspect that the birth-rate of inter-marrying couples has not been anywhere near as high as it could have been.

The upshot is that Indigenous population growth in the NT is extremely low; population growth in NSW is higher but still has barely averaged 2 % p.a. in forty years.

Altogether,

[TBC]