Abstract
This chapter reports on the conduct of the 2001 Census in the Aboriginal town camps of Alice Springs with assistance from the Tangentyere Council. The intention was to conduct the census on a usual residence basis over a period of two or three weeks in the month prior to the official census day. Due to significant difficulties in meeting time constraints, particularly in the recruitment and retention of interviewer-collectors, and maintaining the attention of respondents, a revised collection procedure was undertaken.
The author suggests that the ABS needs to develop a simple single-form interview procedure which can be administered quickly. The author concludes that the IES was not successful in Alice Springs town camps in 2001.
The Australian national census of population and housing is conducted every five years by the ABS. It attempts to collect basic demographic and socioeconomic information about the total Australian population and various subsets of that population, such as Indigenous Australians. As Indigenous Australians are a small minority of all Australians whose circumstances can differ considerably from those of the majority population, the ABS has over recent censuses adopted a special enumeration strategy for Indigenous Australians, particularly in the discrete Indigenous communities in sparsely settled northern and central Australia. The elements of this IES have been in place in the Northern Territory since 1976, Western Australia and South Australia since 1981 and in Queensland since 1991 (see Taylor 1993, and this volume; Loveday & Wade-Marshall 1985). They involve special Indigenous household and personal questionnaires which are designed for interview-based completion, rather than the self-completion of a single household questionnaire relied on in the larger population. Interviewers, or census collectors, are often recruited through Indigenous organisations and are usually themselves Indigenous. CCs, who oversee interviewers, are also recruited through contact with Indigenous community organisations and may also be Indigenous. CCs also undertake work on a third special Indigenous form, the Dwelling Check List, for each discrete Indigenous community.
Through the IES an attempt has clearly been made by the ABS to work in consultation and cooperation with local Indigenous organisations and individuals, as well as to develop a questionnaire procedure which is more appropriate to the circumstances of those being counted. Despite these efforts, doubts about the adequacy of census information relating to Indigenous Australians have continued to be raised. Indigenous community organisations have frequently suggested, when presented with census figures, that their community has been under-enumerated. Researchers too have had cause to suggest under enumeration and other data inadequacies (see for example Taylor 1993, Martin & Taylor 1995). As a result, it seemed useful to attempt to observe the conduct of the 2001 Census in some of these discrete Indigenous communities where the special enumeration strategy was to be used. This paper reports on the conduct of the 2001 Census in the Aboriginal town camps of Alice Springs.