The origin of this book arose from a growing personal concern with the quality of assessment of evidence in public debates. The modus operandi of journalism means that it is necessary to simplify evidence of ‘experts’ who conduct a detailed analysis of statistical data. The exigencies of daily deadlines mean that the reporting of experts’ interpretation of the evidence is sometimes incorrect. However, the alleged experts have fewer excuses, and there is a need to ground their analysis in peer review. This monograph attempts to do this by providing readers with the capacity to critically engage with the evidence presented in public forums.
The volume of quality data in Indigenous affairs has grown exponentially in recent years. Unfortunately, our capacity to analyse it has not increased at the same rate. The main issue is that there is not the number of suitably qualified social scientists focusing on Indigenous issues in Australia to analyse all the data. Another issue is that the sheer volume of data allows some researchers to search for statistics that suit their ideological predisposition. Hughes (2005a) provides an example of the art of selective citation of other people’s analysis to support arguments that are otherwise based on assertions and hyperbole (see Hunter’s [2005] critique of Hughes [2005a] and Hughes and Warin [2005]). Needless to say, this sort of approach violates fundamental principles that most social scientists hold dear. It should be made clear that advocates on all sides of the debate have used this strategy to look for either a statistic or an expert whose conclusions are consistent with their own.
This monograph presents the refereed and peer-reviewed, edited proceedings of the conference on Indigenous Socioeconomic Outcomes: Assessing Recent Evidence. The conference was organised by the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research and held at the Shine Dome, the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra on 11 and 12 August 2005. The conference, which was attended by around 200 people from universities, the government sector, non-profit organisations and private corporations and citizens, aimed to present the latest evidence on Indigenous economic and social status, and family and community life, and discuss its implications for government policy.
After the preliminaries, the conference started with a recent history of the political economy of statistical collections and a brief introduction to NATSISS methodology and the quality of survey questions. While the main focus was on analysing the 2002 NATSISS outputs, many presentations provided an assessment of changes in Indigenous social conditions over time and examined how Indigenous people fared vis-à-vis other Australians in other statistical collections. All contributors were invited to reflect on how NATSISS might be improved when it is next undertaken in 2008. Notwithstanding the fact that one of the main rationales for the conference was to evaluate the NATSISS, considerable time was allocated to providing a broad framework for the discussion, with several overviews provided by generalists who presented fresh perspectives, and a panel discussion of Indigenous public intellectuals who debated the broad Indigenous policy context.
The structure of this monograph closely follows the order of presentations in the conference, with two exceptions: those by Bob Gregory and Tim Rowse. Bob Gregory’s presentation was the first presented on the second day of the conference, but his chapter has been placed in the groups of chapters that deal with labour market issues, as his focus is almost exclusively on such issues. This change of order is in no way a reflection on the quality of the presentation, as it received the most votes for ‘best paper’ at the conference by the participants who filled in the conference evaluation. The contribution from Tim Rowse has been placed at the beginning of this monograph because it provides the historical overview of what he calls the Indigenous statistical archive, a precursor to the rest of the chapters in this volume. Rowse’s penultimate position on the conference timetable had been a ‘historical accident’, as he accommodated last minute changes to the schedule. For the remainder of this preface, unless otherwise indicated, the contributors to the volume have a direct affiliation with CAEPR.
The second chapter in this monograph is written by Jon Altman and John Taylor. It provides a recent history of omnibus social surveys of Indigenous Australians and analyses the political economy of Indigenous statistics. The next two chapters are more methodological in nature. Andrew Webster, Alistair Roger, and Dan Black from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) examined survey design and output issues, while Nicholas Biddle and I examined selected, more general, methodological issues that were relevant to the NATSISS.
Indigenous demography is given due prominence with John Taylor and Yohannes Kinfu critically examining mobility issues within the NATSISS. Yohannes Kinfu then explores the crucial issues of fertility and child survival issues that drive much of the development dynamics in Indigenous Australia.
The important dimensions of Indigenous socioeconomic status are then addressed, starting with Will Sander’s evaluation of the utility of housing in NATSISS. I then examine the treatment of income, financial stress, social exclusion issues with a provocative reference to the so-called ‘poverty wars’. Ruth Weston and Matthew Gray, from the Australian Institute for Family Studies (AIFS), provide a framework for analysing family and community life. Matthew then teamed up with Bruce Chapman (RSSS, ANU) to provide an evaluation of labour force issues. Bob Gregory’s paper then addressed which were the right questions to ask in Indigenous policy, focusing almost exclusively on labour market issues. The important issue of the customary or non-market economy is then examined by Jon Altman, Geoff Buchanan and Nicholas Biddle.
The proceedings of the first day of the conference wrapped up with the panel discussion by prominent Indigenous Australians. Larissa Berhendt (Jumbunna, University of Technology Sydney [UTS]), Tom Calma, and Geoff Scott (Distinguished Professor of Indigenous Policy at UTS) discussed the diverse perspectives on the needs for various data to be collected for Indigenous Australians. In contrast to most other papers in this monograph, this chapter is an edited transcript which includes the questions asked of the panelists at the end of the formal contributions.
The second day of the conference started with the aforementioned paper by Bob Gregory. Jerry Schwab then discussed the contribution of the 2002 NATSISS in education and training-related issues. The next contribution arose from a session on transport and information technology that packed two distinct papers into one (half-hour) slot. While Sarah Holcombe and Peter Radoll (School of Business and Information Management, ANU) (information technology) were constrained to talk for around 15 minutes because of time pressure on the day, these authors provided excellent separate chapters in this monograph on transport and information technology respectively.
Most of the remaining sessions at the conference covered complex social issues facing Indigenous communities. Russell Ross (University of Sydney) provided some fresh insights into Indigenous health. This is the first time he has written on the area, although he has written a considerable number of papers on economic issues facing Indigenous people. Maggie Brady and Tanya Chikritzhs (Curtin University) then provided a critical analysis of the NATSISS data on substance abuse and tobacco. Mick Dodson (National Centre for Indigenous Studies, ANU) and I then examined crime and justice data in NATSISS, and call for a greater consistency in the survey collections for Indigenous and other Australians. Nicolas Peterson (School of Archaeology and Anthropology, ANU) examines cultural issues in the 2002 NATSISS before Inge Kral and Frances Morphy focus on how the information on language might be optimised in a survey context. Bill Arthur provides an overview of Torres Strait Islanders, using the now conventional distinction of those who live in the Strait and those who live on the mainland. Tom Calma (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission [HREOC]) provides a detailed analysis of social justice issues.
In the final chapter, Jon Altman and I provide some concluding remarks and a wrap-up for the monograph, which pays particular attention to summarising the lessons learned from the conference and highlights how future statistical collections might be improved.
The conference also included an informal presentation by Nicholas Biddle which described an easy-to-use, CAEPR do-it-yourself spreadsheet for customised hypothesis tests on NATSISS data. This spreadsheet is now available on the CAEPR web site, and can be used to validate all the significance tests conducted in this monograph. Since this spreadsheet is publicly available, I have encouraged authors to report results of the significance tests in the text but to not necessarily report the statistics themselves. In addition to avoiding any duplication, it hopefully makes the monograph easier to read without compromising the rigour required in a scholarly publication. Readers should note that the spreadsheet only provides approximate (usually conservative) significance tests based on standard errors expressed in levels. For a discussion about the reliability of 2002 NATSIS data and alternative procedures for estimating significance tests, see ABS (2004c: 68–9).
The authors of the monograph chapters were largely left to their own devices when writing their contribution, before the refereeing process for publication. Before the conference, I sent out an e-mail to get the contributors to think about the substantive outstanding issues in their subject areas and how NATSISS and other future data collections might address the needs identified. It will be apparent in what follows that the authors adopted unique approaches to their respective subject matter(s). This is to be encouraged because it is the strength of an edited volume. As is usual in academic publications, it should be noted that the views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not reflect those of the institutions to which they are attached.
Finally, in my time at CAEPR I have encountered some suspicion of statistical evidence mostly from the occasional qualitative researcher who seems to think that statistics objectify Indigenous people and only provide extremely limited insights for Indigenous people and policy makers. I would be the first to acknowledge the limitations of statistical analysis, but it is important to honour the participation of all the 10 000 respondents who spent many hours filling in the form, and work out what they were telling the ABS. Quantitative and qualitative research each have different and valid insights to yield, but both need to acknowledge that they are based on the generosity of respondents who entrusted their knowledge and experience to the people who collect the data. Consequently, the main focus of this conference should be to work out what, if anything, the ABS survey data tells us.
The strength of this monograph, as with all edited volumes, is that it can explore different perspectives. While this point might be characterised as being ‘post-modern’ by some, it is not necessarily so. Rather, it is an acknowledgment of the obvious—that is, there is considerable uncertainty about which theoretical model should be adopted, and hence there are legitimate issues about how to interpret the 2002 NATSISS data.
Having mentioned the word ‘post-modern’ I want to assure readers that not all of the authors drink Chardonnay! Indeed, I could not find one person who admitted to drinking Chardonnay with an informal straw poll revealing that the most popular drink among authors is a full-bodied red. Furthermore, the award for the best paper at the conference was a bottle of whisky, albeit an Irish whisky. Notwithstanding their drinking habits, none of the authors admitted to disparaging others for their consumption habits.
The diversity of opinions of authors will be obvious to all those who persevere in reading through the entire book. I hope readers will find their perseverance rewarded because the contrasting approaches of the various chapters suggest some research directions for the academy. However, for those who pick and choose which chapters they are interested in, I commend you to the concluding chapter which briefly draws together the disparate themes of the monograph.
Boyd Hunter
Fellow, CAEPR