Referenced by 10 other explainers
First Nations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples) shows how many people in an area say they are Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, both, or neither.
The figures come from Census data. The Australian Bureau of Statistics collects them.
ABS publishes a separate Not stated count for Indigenous status, so this marker shows a Not stated row next to the four other groups.
Place Forecast tries to present these data in line with Indigenous Data Sovereignty principles. See the linked page for what that means.
ABS uses two Census questions to record this. One asks if a person is of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin. The other lets a person mark both. The five groups here come from those two questions.
Indigenous status is recorded for every person, at every age. The total counts people at their usual place of residence. It covers people in non-private homes such as hospitals, aged-care homes, hostels, and student housing. It does not count overseas visitors.
The ABS Census undercounts Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The 2021 Post Enumeration Survey put the net undercount at about 17.4 per cent. Place Forecast shows the raw Census count, not the adjusted count. So the figures will be lower than the published ABS Estimated Resident Population for First Nations people. Use these counts for the make-up story. Use ERP for area-wide totals.
The Not stated group is not a count of who is or is not Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. It records that the form was not filled in on this question. Reasons vary. Some people leave the question blank. Some forms come back without that page filled in. Read Not stated as a form fact, not as a fact about identity.
First Nations population change between Censuses has two parts. One is the usual mix of births, deaths, and migration. The other is change in identity: people who do not say they are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander on one Census and do on the next, for personal, family, or community reasons. Both are real parts of change. Place Forecast does not split them.
ABS perturbation has its strongest effect on small Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cells. An SA1 cell can be moved to zero or away from zero.
Place Forecast stores First Nations at the mesh block level. The 5-category split sits across two Census tables, both at SA1. One table gives the three-way split inside the Aboriginal-and-or-Torres-Strait-Islander group. The other gives Non-Indigenous and Not stated. We join the two, split each SA1 across its mesh blocks by the share of ERP, and add the mesh blocks back up to the area you see. So the figures for very small areas are an estimate, not a direct ABS count.
LGA figures match the ABS published cell for groups with full small-area coverage. Where every small area sits within ABS perturbation noise (a count under 4) for an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander group, Place Forecast does not make up a value at the small-area level, in line with Indigenous Data Sovereignty rules. The small-area sum for those groups will then sit below the ABS LGA total. Treat the ABS LGA total as the more reliable figure. See LGA anchoring for the general rule.
For planning that touches Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community life, talk with the local community-led group before drawing strong claims from these figures.