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QUALITY DECLARATION SUMMARY


INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

For information on the institutional environment of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), including the legislative obligations of the ABS, financing and governance arrangements, and mechanisms for scrutiny of ABS operations, please see ABS Institutional Environment.

RELEVANCE

This publication contains final experimental estimates of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous), non-Indigenous and total populations of Australia at 30 June 2006, based on results of the 2006 Census of Population and Housing. Estimates are disaggregated by age and sex for Australia, states/territories, Remoteness Areas and Indigenous Regions. Estimates for Statistical Local Areas are available for total all ages only.


TIMELINESS

Estimates of the Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations are produced for 30 June of each census year. Preliminary estimates for 30 June 2006 were released on 24 September 2007 in Australian Demographic Statistics, March Quarter 2007 (cat. no. 3101.0).
Final estimates for 30 June 2006 were released on 19 August 2008 in Experimental Estimates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians (cat. no. 3238.0.55.001).

A time series of estimates of the Indigenous population, based on estimates from the most recent census, are produced once every five years. Estimates for the period 1991 to 2005 are scheduled for release in September 2009 in Experimental Estimates and Projections, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, 1991 to 2021 (cat. no. 3238.0).


ACCURACY

The estimates presented in this publication are based on results of the 2006 Census of Population and Housing, adjusted for net undercount as measured by the Post Enumeration Survey.

The goal of the census is to obtain a complete measure of the number and characteristics of people in Australia on census night and their dwellings. To achieve this, extensive effort is put into census form design, collection procedures, and processing procedures. For further information on sources of error in the census, see the Explanatory Notes.

In a large and complex exercise such as the census, it is inevitable that a small number of people will be missed and some will be counted more than once. In Australia, more people are missed from the census than are counted more than once. The net effect when both factors are taken into account is net undercount.

The ABS conducts the Post Enumeration Survey shortly after the census to determine how many people were missed in the census and how many were counted more than once. For 2006, the net undercount of the Indigenous population was 59,200 persons.

There were 1,133,300 census records (5.7% of the total census count) with unknown Indigenous status in the 2006 census. For the purposes of population estimates, these records are allocated to either Indigenous or non-Indigenous according to other demographic characteristics from the census. For a detailed discussion of unknown Indigenous status in the 2006 census see Interpreting The Data in Population Distribution, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, 2006 (cat. no. 4705.0).

The extent of undercoverage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians in the 2006 census and the relatively small sample size of the Post Enumeration Survey to adjust for that undercoverage means the estimates should be interpreted with caution.

For more information see Technical Note: Estimated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian Resident Population – Method of Calculation.

COHERENCE

The estimates presented in this publication are not consistent with, and should not be compared with, estimates based on 2001 or other censuses, for a number of reasons including:

• changes in census collection methodologies over time, and in particular, in the Indigenous Enumeration Strategy used in the census – see Interpreting The Data in Population Distribution, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, 2006 (cat. no. 4705.0);
• unexplained growth in the Indigenous population between censuses – see Experimental Estimates and Projections, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, 1991 to 2009 (cat. no. 3238.0); and
• changes in methodology and scope of the Post Enumeration Survey over time – for more information on the PES, see Information Paper: Measuring Net Undercount in the 2006 Population Census, 2007 (cat. no. 2940.0.55.001), Research Paper: An Estimating Equation Approach to Census Coverage Adjustment, May 2007 (cat. no. 1351.0.55.019), Census of Population and Housing - Undercount, 2006 (cat. no. 2940.0) and Census of Population and Housing - Details of Undercount, Aug 2006 (cat. no. 2940.0).

• Main Features, which contains summary commentary; and
• data cubes (in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet format).