Bob Katter claimed on Q & A that he was a Blackfella.

Since at least the late nineties, some academics in Indigenous Studies have perceived themselves as being more immersed in Aboriginal culture than Aboriginal people themselves and 'therefore' more Aboriginal. Probably many on the 'Left' now have the same perceptions.

Since the War, inter-marriage rates have rapidly increased: perhaps 90 % of urban Indigenous people now inter-marry quite happily. Of course, this will tend to tie them down to the urban areas where they grew up. But one, two and three generations of inter-marriage does attenuate any links with culture, country and extended family, and of course identity.

Since the earliest days, administrations have grappled with the definition of 'Aboriginal', or 'native' - usually the term used to describe a person as just 'native' meant a native-born white person. The Australian Natives' Association, founded in 1871, to represent them, still exists, as Lifeplan. Usually administrations from the earliest days have conceded that any mixed-race person was entitled to much the same benefits as 'Aboriginal natives'. Those policies have continued for six or seven generations now.

At the 2016 Census, the Indigenous population rose by about 18 %. In the NT, it rose by only about 3 %. I would suggest that the 'inflation' caused by re-identification (and identification: see above) was around 11 %. So 'real population growth' was barely 5-7 %, barely 1 % p.a. The size of birth-groups continues to decline. Even so, the population shift was from remote areas to towns, and from towns to cities.

We lived in one 'community' across the mid-seventies up on the Murray, when it had a population of about 150. At the 2016 Census, it had a population there of 34. Visiting it a few years ago, I noticed only two houses being lived in, perhaps a dozen people.

If you pay them, they will come! Just saying.

Fools rush in, don't they ? My grandma was right, I'm not as clever as I thought: I used a wrong set of figures to analyse the Census figures for the NT. The number of people NOT ticking any box was so large that it's pointless to make much of the Census data. Except perhaps for the likelihood (that's all I'm going to call it all, from now on) that the number of Indigenous births in the NT seems to be falling, even faster than across Australia generally. Very tentatively, I would suggest that the Indigenous birth-rate is no higher than Australia's, and hasn't been for 45 years.

But the good news is that populations in most places rose miraculously by more than the number of births. Nobody seems to have died in the past five years, and many older people have come back to life. That's probably because of the power of the old fellas' magic.

Or re-identification: people have been doing that now for forty years, so when will the last person come out of the cupboard ?

OR identification: people with no actual Indigenous ancestry - but - truly-ruly strong feelings about it, passing themselves off as Indigenous. Tasmania seems to be a shining example of this. Tasmanians must really love Blackfellas.

Joe

Oh dear, the outright ignorance and racist attitudes on display in the comments are breathtaking. The faux outrage of the whitefellas who cannot comprehend some of the many reasons for the increases in people identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.

The Tasmanian situation is hardly the anomaly it seems as the population of Aboriginal people is still a very small 20 000 (approx.). The number being 4.6% of overall population is due to the state population being small and around the 537 000 mark.

It is a myth that Tasmanian Aboriginal people ceased to exist after Trukannini's death in 1876. It is also a myth that all the remaining Tasmanian Aboriginal people were 'rounded up' and sent to Flinders Island at the end of the Black War. Those who were the focus of George Augustus Robinson's 'mission' were those still waging resistance against the invading colonisers. As historian Lyndall Ryan identifies there was a 'creole' population of Tasmanian Aboriginal people who had mixed bloodlines. They were never accepted into either society.

They were often the 'product' of rapes committed by convicts who were used to frontier shepherds or stockmen. There were no official records of the children. Those children then invariably became servants, labourers or shepherds. The only records of them being Aboriginal are oral family and local histories. As people do more research into their family histories the more people find they have Aboriginal family.

There are also issues to with previous adoption practices and people are also finding out that they have Aboriginal ancestry due to that. It is not their fault part of their heritage has been denied to them.

Hi Moronitaur,

As usual, you miss the point entirely. Populations can't just increase vastly on a whim, and certainly not without at least as many births: nobody is born after the age of 0, not at 6, or 15, or 38. So how do those population groups increase in number ? How can a population increase by more than the number of births ? What, nobody dies ? Yes, i know like everybody else that Indigenous people are super-human but not that super-human.

I was looking at the total Indigenous population figures for each Census since 1971, and it struck me that sometimes the population growth was greater than the number of births from one Census to the next. I totalled up the extras and it came to 120,000 since 1971 - 120,000 more in the population than births. Then I made very rough guess for mortality, say 5 % between Censuses, or 1 % p.a. - and added all the 'excess' figures up: it came to 407,000. In other words, there were 407,000 more Indigenous people in Australia in 2016 than all the births and deaths since 1971. How's that possible ?

Obviously, re-identification on a massive scale of people who were already there (and their kids since 1971) - and identification by non-Indigenous people, thinking they were doing Blackfellas a good turn. As for re-identification, how long since 1971 does it take for people to 're-identify' ? That's their right, but it all knocks the daylights out of any sensible analysis or predictions of Indigenous population.

Joe

Thanks for starting with the insult Joe...very typical response when someone did not comprehend what they were presented with. And my comment wasn't a direct response to you anyway.

Clearly, this issue is one of complexity that is beyond the comprehension of many. You, Joe, clearly missed my point that people are discovering Aboriginal ancestry and therefore identifying on the census as being Aboriginal (or Torres Strait Islander). Such were the levels of racism and government control over Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that great numbers of them hid their identity so they could raise the families without the constant threat of being targeted by authorities.

It is not a case of an increasing population based on birth/death ratios. Only a simpleton would apply such a criteria. You have to look at the complexities of people who previously hid their heritage/identity but now either they or their descendants feeling proud and confident enough to reclaim that identity.

There has also been an great increase in people's ability to trace family heritage and that too is a contributing factor. There can be no time limit on that rediscovery and to try and apply one is, again, simplistic.

If you don't understand something why comment on it?