Letters | Why being counted in Australia’s census matters

Readers discuss the Albanese government’s reluctance to include questions on gender and sexuality in the census, and the scourge of war

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Indigenous Australian performers hold a smoking ceremony to open NAIDOC Week, a national programme that celebrates the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee, in Sydney on July 6, 2015, which grew from the first political groups seeking rights for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Australians in the 1920s. Photo: AFP

Published: 2:30pm, 7 Sep 2024

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The attempt by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labour government to exclude questions on sexuality and gender from Australia’s 2026 census could be considered terra nullius revisited. Indigenous Australians were not even counted in the census until 1971.

The fiction that Australia was nobody’s land when Britain began to claim sovereignty over it in 1788 was also enshrined in Australian law until 1992. Therefore, indigenous Australians weren’t recognised nor were their legal titles to traditional lands.

Life expectancy for indigenous Australians is eight to nine years lower than non-indigenous citizens. They are nearly three times more likely to die by suicide, and experience a higher disease burden and greater infant mortality.

They are one of the most incarcerated people on Earth. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are 12.5 times more likely to be in prison than non-indigenous Australians. Indigenous women are 21 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-indigenous women. Youth detention rates are 22 times the rate of non-indigenous youth.

Thirty per cent of indigenous Australians live in poverty, including overcrowded and substandard housing. Indeed, by any socioeconomic determinant, they lag significantly behind non-indigenous Australians.