2081.0 - Australians' journeys through life: Stories from the Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset, ACLD Quality Declaration 
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 05/12/2018   
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OVERVIEW OF CHANGING IDENTIFICATION IN THE CENSUS

Two-thirds (66% or an estimated 453,000) of people who ever identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander between 2006 and 2016 have consistently identified. Similar proportions of people were newly identified in 2011, newly identified in 2016 or previously identified.

1.1 Consistency of identification as an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person, 2006-2016(a)(b)

Graph shows the distribution of people who were consistently identified (66.0%), newly identified in 2011 (9.6%), newly identified in 2016 (11.1%), previously identified (11.9%), and identified in 2016 and 2006 (1.4%).
(a) Based on Indigenous status in 2016.
(b) Person aged 10 years and over in 2016.

For further detail, see Table 1 in the data cube titled ‘ACLD 2006-2011-2016 Identification as an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person in the Census over time’
Note: Cells in this graph have been randomly adjusted to avoid the release of confidential data. Discrepancies may occur between sums of the component items and totals.
Source: ABS 2019, Microdata: Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset, ACLD, cat no. 2080.0, ABS Canberra

Of the estimated 76,000 people who were newly identified in 2016:

      • Almost all (95%) identified as non-Indigenous in 2006 and 2011
      • 4% identified as either non-Indigenous or did not provide their Indigenous status in 2006 or 2011
      • A very small proportion (1%) did not provide their Indigenous status in 2006 and 2011.

Of the estimated 66,000 people who were newly identified in 2011:
      • Most (90%) identified as non-Indigenous in 2006
      • The remainder did not provide their Indigenous status in 2006.

Of the estimated 82,000 people who were previously identified:
      • 47% identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in 2006 only
      • 26% identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in 2011 only
      • 27% identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in 2006 and 2011.

Of the estimated 10,000 people who identified in 2016 and 2006:
      • 80% identified as non-Indigenous in 2011
      • The remainder did not provide their Indigenous status in 2011.

Given there was only a small proportion of people who identified in 2016 and 2006 (1.4% of people who ever identified), this group is only included in the total for the remainder of this article.