Issue Brief 13 / 1997

One characteristic of the Indigenous population which makes it difficult to plan for the delivery of services such as health, housing, employment and education, is the fact that Indigenous people move a great deal. Frequent changes in location cause variation in the level of demand for services at different times in different places. To add to the difficulty, little is known about the details of this population movement as the census is not designed to measure it. Consequently, while the existence of short-term mobility is well-known from community-based case studies, few data exist. Furthermore, temporary residents are not included in official counts of household size and were grossly under-enumerated in the 1994 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey.

This discussion paper by Dr John Taylor titled Short-term Indigenous population mobility and service delivery goes some way towards addressing the problem of measuring Indigenous population movement. It establishes the rate and pattern of short-term movement of Indigenous people nationally by comparing regions where people were counted in the census against regions where they said they were usually resident. The results show that:

• Of the 18,000 Indigenous people who were counted at census time and were away from their usual place of residence, most (57 per cent) moved locally within the same region.
• Almost 8,000 moved further afield, to another region. Most of these moves were between major cities and regional centres and regional centres and rural areas.

The map (below) shows the net effect of this short-term population movement in terms of temporarily adding to, or subtracting from, regional populations. All major urban areas or regional centres experienced net gains of temporary movers while the majority of other less-urbanised regions (80 per cent) recorded net losses. Also, the degree to which the population of cities and regional centres is made up of visitors from other regions varies. For example, 2.2 per cent of the Indigenous population counted in Sydney at census time were usual residents of somewhere else. In Perth the figure was 4.5; Townsville 5.6; Cairns 8.6 and Darwin 11.2. If those temporarily absent from such centres are added then fairly high rates of population turnover are found. In Darwin, for example, 18 per cent of the population is either absent or from somewhere else. As for the pattern of this movement, evidence from the Northern Territory census data reveals that it occurs within well-defined catchment areas which approximate respective urban hinterlands. In the case of Darwin, the bulk of temporary migrants originate from adjacent regions in the Top End.

Taylor uses a household survey of the Bagot community in Darwin as an example of how to collect more detailed information on short-term movement than can be obtained from the census. The person renting each house was asked to distinguish permanent from temporary household residents. The results showed that:

• half of the dwellings had temporary visitors, totalling one-quarter of the population and
• eighty per cent of households regularly provided for such visitors.

Tenancy records from Aboriginal Hostels Limited in Darwin, were also used to illustrate how administrative data on non-private dwellings provide some indication of the duration of stay away from a usual place of residence. The average length of stay at the hostels was found to be two months, although there was a fairly wide range around this with most visits for much shorter periods and a few for up to one year.

Regional pattern of short-term net migration: Indigenous Australians, 1991.

Policy implications

The basic policy issue raised is how to effectively plan for a population which is mobile over the short term. How is the need for services best defined when individuals frequently shift location, even within the same locality? Better data on Indigenous mobility is fundamental to addressing this problem. In the paper, Taylor suggests some ways of dealing with this problem. He points out that a further opportunity to study aspects of short-term movement will be available following the release of the 1996 Census due to the re-introduction of a question on usual place of residence one year ago.

This Issue Brief summarised CAEPR Discussion Paper No. 118, 'Short-term Indigenous population mobility and service delivery' by J. Taylor published in October 1996. It was prepared by John Taylor and edited by Linda Roach.