Our estimate of per capita health expenditure for Indigenous people living in non-sparsely settled areas is $2734, which is around $500 higher than the estimate of $2277 for non-Indigenous people. However, the estimates of per capita health expenditure are quite variable, and this difference between Indigenous and other Australians is not significant. When the unreliable hospital data are excluded, per capita health expenditure on Indigenous people is estimated to be significantly lower than the non-Indigenous average ($930 and $1351 respectively).

The expenditure for each income group reveals a similar pattern, with Indigenous expenditure being higher, albeit insignificantly higher, before hospital data are excluded. This pattern is reversed when the focus is on non-hospital related expenses, with Indigenous expenditure being significantly lower irrespective of family income.

Consistent with the international literature, non-Indigenous health expenditure is, on the whole, significantly higher for low-income or poorer families. In contrast, there is no significant relationship between income and per capita health expenditure for Indigenous people.

In order to test whether this apparent anomaly is due to the reliability of aggregate estimates of per capita expenditure, the utilisation of health services is estimated for each income group. The same story is replicated with no significant relationship between income and utilisation for the Indigenous population, except perhaps when the per capita income measure is used. For the non-Indigenous population, there is a significant relationship for most measures of income (except the Henderson measure) with lower-income families being slightly more likely to have used a health service in the previous two weeks. On average, the levels of utilisation reveal that, whatever the family income, Indigenous people use health services much less than other Australians, despite experiencing higher mortality and morbidity.