The aim of this page is to give a brief overview about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (who are also often referred to as Indigenous Australians). This page includes a summary of the key statistics which explain where and how Indigenous people live, and a list of online resources that you can use to find out more. Specific issues like land rights or health are explored in more detail on the other Issue pages (listed right).

Click below to take you straight to a particular section, or just scroll down:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
• Population
• Closing the Gap
• Moving Forward
• Useful resources and links
• Links to more statistics

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

There are two distinct groups of Indigenous peoples of Australia - Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders. Aboriginal people are people who traditionally lived on mainland Australia and Torres Strait Islanders traditionally lived on a group of islands off the north east of Australia known as the Torres Strait. Together Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders are often referred to as Indigenous peoples or Indigenous Australians.

Indigenous Australians were the first people to live on the continent (and the surrounding islands) that is now known as Australia. There is evidence that Indigenous peoples have lived in Australia for over 70,000 years, or even up to 120,000 years, making them some of the oldest, if not THE oldest, surviving civilisations in the world today. Some 500 - 700 Aboriginal nations existed, each with their own systems of government, languages, cultural practices, religions and traditions.

Many Indigenous people today maintain a strong connection to culture, language and their traditional lands. In Australia today:

• 70% of Indigenous adults recognise their traditional country.
• Although many languages have been lost, today 21% of Indigenous people speak an Indigenous language. The number is growing as more schools run programs to support the revival of local languages.
• Indigenous native title rights are increasingly being recognised. In 2006 native title was recognised over 8 per cent of land in Australia, compared with 5 per cent in June 2004.
• There are growing numbers of shared co-management agreements where local Indigenous people have taken over management of their traditional lands to protect and manage them. This includes many national parks, for example the world heritage listed Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory.
• There are large numbers of Indigenous controlled organisations and services.

Population

In the late 1700s Australia was colonised by the British. No-one knows how many people lived in Australia at this time, but it is known that the Indigenous population decreased dramatically following the invasion through disease and armed conflict.

In Australia today the Indigenous population makes up only around 2% of the Australian population. The rest of the Australian population (around 20 million people) is made of people from many different countries, with people of British descent still making up the largest single group.

The number and proportion of Indigenous people compared to the rest of the Australian population has been growing in recent years. The Indigenous population is also a young population, with around 70% of Indigenous people aged 25 and under.

Over half of all Indigenous people live in New South Wales and Queensland. NSW has the largest Indigenous population in Australia (with 29%), followed by Queensland (with 27%).

There is a common misapprehension that Indigenous people mostly live in the bush, and it’s true that a bigger percentage of Indigenous people live in remote areas than other people. Overall though, most Indigenous people live in large regional centres and cities like Sydney.

In some states, particularly the Northern Territory and Western Australia, there are less Indigenous people overall but there are large numbers of small Indigenous communities. In more remote areas there are also many communities where english is only spoken as the second or third language.

Closing the Gap

Indigenous people today are the most disadvantaged group of people in Australia. On all the major indicators such as health, housing, education and employment Indigenous people are significantly worse off than other Australians.

In 2007, the statistics highlight some of the big gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

• Life expectancy is 17 years less for Indigenous people: that’s 59.4 years for Indigenous men vs. 76.6 years for all Australian men and 64.8 years for Indigenous women vs. 82.0 years for all women.
• Infant mortality (the rate at which babies die) is three times as high, and Indigenous babies are twice as likely to be low birth weight, which makes them much more vulnerable to illness.
• There are significantly higher rates of chronic diseases, communicable diseases, disabilities and mental health problems amongst Indigenous people.
• Indigenous students are half as likely to stay at school until the end of Year 12 as other students.
• The average Indigenous household income is only 62% of the national average (this means Indigenous households get an average of $364/wk compared to $585/wk for other families, as of 2001 Census), and over half of Indigenous people get most of their income from government welfare.
• The Indigenous unemployment rate is about three times higher than that of non-Indigenous people. Many Indigenous people also rely on government funded work unemployment programs, like the Community Employment Development Program (CDEP).
• Indigenous people are much more likely to be renting a house (63.5% vs. 26.6% overall) rather than owning their own home (12.6% vs. 40.5% overall).
• Overcrowding in housing is a major problem. This is worst in remote communities where up to 17 people can share a 3 bedroom house.
• Indigenous people are much more likely to be victims of violence, for example Indigenous people make up around 15% of murder victims, even though they only make up 2.3% of the population.
• There are much higher levels of substance abuse, family violence and suicide in Indigenous communities.
• Indigenous young people are more than 4 times more likely to be sexually abused.

The gap in how well Indigenous and non-Indigenous people are doing is not just driven by Indigenous people living in remote communities, where some forms of disadvantage, like health, can be much worse. The statistics show that moving to the cities does little to reduce the disadvantage experienced by Indigenous people. Non-Indigenous people in urban areas (cities and country towns) tend to be better off, and Indigenous people are over-represented in the poorest suburbs and parts of town.

Moving forward

Over the last few years some measures of Indigenous wellbeing have improved, for example more Indigenous children are completing school than in the past.

But Australia has also gone backwards in other measures. For example, more Indigenous people are being locked up than ever before. Between 2002 and 2006, the imprisonment rate for Indigenous women increased by 34 per cent and the imprisonment rate for Indigenous men increased by over 20 per cent.

Other measures, like health and life expectancy, have only gotten a little better. For more information see the Health Issue page of this website.

Australia compares badly to other similar countries in terms of the ongoing treatment of its Indigenous peoples. In Canada and New Zealand for example, there have been massive improvements in areas of disadvantage like life expectancy. In these countries the gap between how long Indigenous and non-Indigenous people live has narrowed from about 20 years to 7 years. This shows that real change is possible - and Australia could do a lot better.

Resource Reviews

There are a number of good online resources available which give good introductory information about Indigenous Australians.

Face the Facts by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC)(2005)
www.hreoc.gov.au/racial_discrimination/face_facts/index.html
This booklet is divided into three sections, with the section on Indigenous people including short or introductory information and statistics about Australian history, the policies impacting on Indigenous people, and the situation today. Very useful! Other useful HREOC resources include teaching resources which include exercises that can be done using Face the Facts.

Dreaming Online by the Australian Museum
http://www.dreamtime.net.au
This is a website which explores Indigenous Australia through storytelling, cultures and histories. It includes an introductory section called ‘About Indigenous Australia’, for students and teachers. Check out the stories by Indigenous Elders that you can watch or listen to from the website.

Frog and Toad’s Indigenous Australia
http://indigenousaustralia.frogandtoad.com.au
This website is written by Indigenous people. It doesn’t include basic information like some of the other resources listed on this page, but it does includes news and events effecting Aboriginal Australians, and some good information about Aboriginal culture, peoples’ relationship to land, language and religion, and the Aboriginal flag.

Share Our Pride website
http://www.shareourpride.org.au
This website was developed by Reconciliation Australia for workers wanting to learn about Indigenous Australians. You need to ‘login’ but it’s free, and there’s some very useful introductory information and questions you can use to consider what you’ve learned.

Kooriweb.org
http://www.kooriweb.org/
This website is managed by Aboriginal activist Gary Foley, and links to a range of websites run by Aboriginal people. The sites linked to Kooriweb include information about current campaigns for Indigenous rights. A good website if you want to read the views of some Indigenous people who have been involved in campaigns for Indigenous rights. Check out the brilliant photo libraries to see images from past campaigns.

Reconciliation resources from the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/IndigLRes/car
The Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR) existed from 1991-2001, and produced many resources to educate the community about Indigenous people and reconciliation. Most of these resources have been placed online, including:
Rebutting the Myths - Some facts about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs
which debunks stereotypes regarding Aboriginal people and alcohol, employment, land and other myths such as the perception that Aboriginal people get special treatment – but be aware that most of the statistical information is from the 1990s, so it’s a bit out of date.

Racism: No Way! A guide for Australian schools
http://www.racismnoway.com.au
This is a website developed by the Commonwealth Government in 2000, which continues to be updated with fact sheets about different issues. There is a Fact Sheet called An introduction to Indigenous Traditions, which gives a short explanation about Aboriginal religion and the Dreaming, but it is recommended that it’s always a good idea when learning about these issues to try and find information written by Indigenous people themselves– like some of the other websites linked above!

Messagestick: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Online
http://www.abc.net.au/message/
This website is run by the ABC and includes some great resources, particularly audio and video stories by Indigenous people. Includes a lot of stories produced by the ABC.

Statistics
A couple of website bring together detailed statistics about Indigenous Australians including the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census website
http://www.abs.gov.au
You can search for all ‘Indigenous’ statistics or for particular reports. This is very detailed information so it can be easy to get lost so look for summaries or ‘Quick stats’ or ’snapshots’.

Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage by the Productivity Commission
http://www.pc.gov.au (2007 edition)
This nation report is produced every couple of years and pulls together lots of useful statistics. It’s a very long report so download the ‘Overview’ to get a summary.

Reconciliation Australia website
http://www.reconciliation.org.au
Reconciliation Australia has put together a range of good summaries about the key statistics for Indigenous people, in 2008, which can be accessed by following the links on its website to the ‘Resources’ section, and then Statistics’.

Help us get it right: Please report broken links and inappropriate links to recon@reconciliaction.org.au