Planning and negotiations between the ABS and Tangentyere for the collection of the 2006 Census in the town camps began quite early in the year. The ABS opened an Alice Springs office in March—compared with somewhat later in 2001. By the time I visited in May, there had already been discussions and developments regarding the ABS supplying cars so collectors could move between Tangentyere’s central office complex and the camps scattered across Alice Springs (see Figure 3.1). There had also been negotiations about working and being paid in teams of two, as was the practice in the Tangentyere population and mobility surveys.

By the time I returned on Monday 17 July—three weeks and one day out from the general census night on Tuesday 8 August—the Census Field Officer (CFO) had conducted training of eight CIs late the previous week and the first day of collecting in the town camps was under way. All the CIs were Aboriginal women, some of whom lived in the town camps themselves, but most of whom lived in other housing around town. In the next day or so, another two or three CIs were added, still all women, though there was some consciousness at the time of trying to recruit some men. The new CIs who had missed the formal training of the previous week were effectively trained by giving them a DVD to watch and by pairing them with established CIs, who by then had a day or two’s experience. One or two CIs pulled back after their first encounter with the hard reality of collection. Most, however, stayed with the task, while also clearly realising that it was not always going to be easy. There were also a few teething troubles in those first few days over the numbering of dwellings in the camps on the green Interviewer Dwelling Checklist (IDC). There was an initial attempt to use a different dwelling numbering system to Tangentyere’s existing house-numbering system. It soon became evident, however, that it was clearer to use the existing Tangentyere system and then to add as necessary any other occupied dwellings, such as tin sheds or community facilities.

The collection process settled during its first week into a pattern of about eight women CIs assembling at the Tangentyere research unit office about 8.30am and, under the supervision of the CFO, dividing into two or three car-loads of teams. A car-load of collectors would focus on one of the 11 groupings of town camps that corresponded with an ABS Collection District (CD). Generally, two such CDs of camps were being worked on at a time by different teams of CIs. Out in the camps, the women approached a dwelling and asked for the ‘house boss’. If the house boss was available, the interview generally took place then and there; if not, an attempt was made to identify a time to come back. Occasionally, someone present was identified who was not the house boss but who had sufficient knowledge and authority within the household group to answer on their behalf. Another possibility was to meet the house boss elsewhere—for example, at their work. Local knowledge proved important here, since most of the CIs seemed to know most of the house bosses, even if only vaguely, and when and where they might be found if they were not home on the first visit.

Interviews could take anywhere between 40 minutes and an hour, depending largely on the number of people in the household. Teams of two CIs could generally complete between three and four household interviews in a morning, depending on whether they stuck together closely as a team of two or split up as opportunities for interviews developed. Teams of CIs would regroup at the Tangentyere research office for lunch and to transfer details from the pink IHFs to their green IDC. Dwellings were being dealt with at a rate of about 12 a morning and then, in the afternoon, through follow-up, at a rate of perhaps another three or four. Mornings were therefore the main work period, followed by a considerably less concerted work period after lunch.

Within interviews, the first half of the 40 to 60-minute process would be spent answering the opening questions about the dwelling and listing people who were either living in or staying in the dwelling now (Question 12; see Appendix A) or who lived there most of the time but were away (Questions 10 and 11). These questions also covered the basic age and gender characteristics of each person listed, and also whether they were a visitor, or their location if they were away. Once this listing of people’s names, ages and genders was complete, interviews settled into a somewhat more routine mode of answering questions about the people listed in Question 12 as living or staying there now. Interviewers generally answered each question for each person listed before moving on to the next question. This ‘vertical’ working method had been anticipated during form design as the likely dominant mode of collector operation and certainly this proved to be the case in the Alice Springs town camps.

This process of enumeration of about 12 to 15 dwellings a day continued from Monday to Thursday in the first week of the collection process under the supervision of the CFO. Friday was seen as a day off, as is commonly the case in Aboriginal communities, particularly where employment is through the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme. During this first week it also gradually became understood more clearly that in the second week, the CFO would be attending to collection processes out of Alice Springs and hence would not be around. The CIs, one of whom was also now designated as the CC, would therefore be a little more on their own. It was also understood, however, that with the absence of the CFO the District Manager and her Assistant would endeavour to provide daily support, at least at the Tangentyere research office if not out in the camps. Perhaps their most important form of daily support was providing lunches, which were proving a useful social and administrative focus for the group of CIs as they returned to the Tangentyere research unit office after their morning’s work.

The second week of the collection process proceeded, in fact, much like the first. The group of women CIs seemed to have developed a fairly good camaraderie and, apart from some occasional absences to attend to other life matters, the team of eight or so CIs hung together well. By the end of the second week, at least a first attempt had been made to carry out the collection in eight of the 11 town camp Collection Districts. Three of perhaps the largest and most difficult town camps remained to be tackled, as well as many follow-ups of dwellings in the other town camps in which the house boss had not been available for interview at the first or even second visit. Progress with the count was, however, generally seen to be good and two of the women CIs decided to take opportunities to accompany CFOs to the bush the next week as Assistant CFOs.

The third week of the census collection process in the town camps therefore began with a slightly reduced team. As well as the two CIs now out bush, another CI pulled back because she had lost her working partner and a fourth, reportedly, pulled back due to concerns that earning too much might adversely effect her Centrelink entitlements. One or two of the other CIs told me that this was not a concern for them as they were on CDEP, which had more relaxed and generous provisions for earning additional income than Centrelink payments. Therefore, only about five or six CIs were left for this third week, and there was a sense in which the collection process in the town camps was now winding down. There were, however, still two quite large camps to count, which had been left to last in part because they were seen as perhaps the most difficult and possibly disrupted by large numbers of current visitors or other recent events—including some ‘sorry business’ and fighting. In the event, four male Tangentyere housing workers were coopted to assist the women in approaching dwellings in the last three camps. Although I did not directly observe the difference this made, it was reported by those involved as making a significant contribution to a difficult final task. By the end of this third week, the task of collecting the 2006 Census in the Alice Springs town camps was seen as essentially done. Most of the women collectors had had enough and were happy to finish, however, the woman who had been doing some CC tasks stayed on for a couple of days, crosschecking IHFs with IDCs and Master Dwelling Checklists (MDCs).

This crosschecking of forms showed that roughly 1200 people had been counted as present in the town camps in about 190 households. Hence, what had taken four or five weeks with 25 CIs in 2001, resulting in a salvage operation and no counting of visitors, had been achieved in 2006 in three weeks in a planned and orderly fashion with eight to 10 CIs and included visitors. So why, one might ask, was there such a vast improvement?