Changing characteristics of the Torres Strait region and its people methodology

The Torres Strait Region consists of 18 island communities grouped into five traditional island clusters/groups and two Northern Peninsula Area (mainland Australia) communities. The availability of data for each of these communities varies depending on the data source.

Where data is available for the 18 island communities/five traditional island groups and the two Northern Peninsula Area (NPA) Torres Strait communities, it is referred to in this publication as the `Region’.

Where data is only available for the 18 island communities/5 traditional island groups but not the 2 NPA communities, it is referred to in this publication as the `Islands’.

The data presented in this publication (with the exception of mobility and place of work data) are compiled using the 2011 and 2016 Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS): Indigenous Structure. The ASGS: Indigenous Structure is only available from 2011 onwards. It is based on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ population distribution in the broader Australian community, so is ideal for analysis of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data. In the ASGS: Indigenous Structure, Indigenous Locations (ILOCs) are the smallest available unit. These are combined to create Indigenous Areas (IAREs) and then Indigenous Regions (IREGs). Data on mobility and place of work is only available at the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Statistical Area 2 (SA2) level. For this reason, data on mobility and place of work is restricted to the Islands only and is not available for the two NPA communities.

Further information about ABS statistical geography can be found here.

Table 5 below provides a summary of the type of statistical geography used in this publication for each Torres Strait community.

A measure of housing utilisation based on a comparison of the number of bedrooms in a dwelling with a series of household demographics, such as the number of usual residents, their relationship to each other, age and sex. The criteria are based on the Canadian National Occupancy Standard. It can be used to identify if a dwelling is either under or over utilised. This is a new derived item for 2016.

Includes access through any device such as mobiles, computers, tablets, gaming consoles or smart TVs.

The Census collects information about whether people lived in the same place on Census night in 2016 as they did 5 years ago. People who say they lived somewhere else 5 years ago and have moved to a new location in 2016 are classed as having migrated from an area to a new location. Note that the “islands” excludes Bamaga and Seisia.

The Census asks people about whether they were at home on Census night and whether their place of work is away from where they would normally live. Together, these two concepts provide information about the temporary movements of a person/population and provide a picture of how the population in the region can change over time.