In its instructions to the CFOs on how to frame the census to the Indigenous public, the ABS focuses on the census as a planning tool, used to ‘identify the needs’ for health or educational services, housing and so on in keeping with its view of itself as set out in its mission statement:
We assist and encourage informed decision-making, research and discussion within governments and the community, by providing a high quality, objective and responsive national statistical service. (Quoted in ABS 2006b: 3)
Perhaps for most census events this characterisation of the role of the ABS serves its purpose, but the 2006 Census—at least in the Northern Territory—took place in a politically charged environment, for two main reasons. The first was the furore over the almost realised political consequences of the 2001 count: the potential loss of a Northern Territory seat in the Commonwealth House of Representatives (Wilson et al. 2005). The second was the turbulent and changing state of Commonwealth Indigenous affairs policy, which was experiencing an upheaval of a magnitude not seen since the early 1970s. This was impacting directly on Indigenous communities and their organisations in unprecedented ways. Both these factors had an influence on the way in which the ABS and the census were perceived on the ground, and this will be a recurring theme in the pages that follow.