Australia Focuses on Indigenous Communities as Census Approaches

SYDNEY - As Australia prepares for a census, administrators are trying to address significant undercounting of Indigenous communities.

Australia holds a census every five years, giving the government a crucial snapshot of the population to help state and federal authorities direct billions of dollars in public funding, including health care spending. Aboriginal Australians, though, have historically been underrepresented. At the last census, in 2016, officials estimated Indigenous people were undercounted by more than 17%. Some have refused to complete the survey, while others were not aware of the census or could not be contacted. John Hill, a remote area team manager at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, described the problem to the Australian Broadcasting Corp, saying, “That is really nearly one in every five Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people were missed out, so that is not that good. If government bodies and service providers do not have accurate figures on what is out there, then there is very little chance people will get the services that they need.”