Undoubtedly, the 2006 Census count in Fitzroy Crossing took much longer and was more problematic than was planned for. Lack of planning and lack of resources—especially the very limited availability of the CFO—seriously undermined the efficiency of the exercise of census-taking across the entire area of this CFO’s responsibility. There would clearly be a major benefit in terms of cost, efficiency and accuracy in devoting more time and resources to planning the census, with local NGOs, but also between ABS personnel (between the non-Indigenous and Indigenous census-takers), paying some considerable attention to the experience of previous census-takers.

The value of local knowledge cannot be overemphasised, and should be sought early in the planning process. Certain mobility trends, for example, are fairly predictable, such as the number of people—Indigenous and non-Indigenous—working in stock camps in August in the Kimberley. Others are less so, such as funerals, which might or might not be taking place locally but which will nevertheless impact enormously on mobility. What might be worth considering is more CCs to coordinate efforts on a smaller scale, and a long enough lead time for the ABS to recruit locals to fill these roles, including time for them to plan properly. Recruiting people who are not concurrently trying to do another full-time job might also increase the effectiveness of the count, although again such recruitment would probably require a longer lead time. An essential element of the planning is contingency planning—or planning for the unplanned. In other words, there needs to be more flexibility and scope built into the timetable to allow for unforeseen events. This CFO, for example, hit a bullock on the road to Billiluna in early September, which took him out of action for nearly a week at a very crucial time in the whole process.

The role played by local Indigenous organisations is also crucial. Sanders (Chapter 3) demonstrates clearly how a strategic engagement of the ABS with a local NGO can be extremely beneficial. Similarly, Taylor (Chapter 5) demonstrates how a lack of this engagement can undermine the effectiveness of the IES. These organisations are critical in two regards: as a source of day-to-day local knowledge and in terms of the support they can provide logistically—vehicles, office space, storage space and so forth. This recommendation, however, needs to be tempered by two issues. The first is that recent trends suggest the number of Indigenous community-based organisations—at least in remote Australia—are decreasing (see, for example, Taylor 2006b: 57); and changes to the CDEP program might see even fewer such organisations in the future. The ABS might want to consider how it could engage with remote communities that have no such administrative centre. The second issue is that not all of these organisations have the same resources and capacity—again, this is where contingency needs to be built into the planning, to account for those organisations whose capacity to provide support to the census process might be variable or limited.