Working Party on the Application of New Technology to Population Data
Fourth meeting
6-9 July 1999
Manila

The ABS is conducting a survey of Indigenous Communities and Indigenous Housing Organisation across Australia later in 1999.  This document outlines how GIS and spatial analysis are being used to support the development of a survey frame and some thoughts on analysis and presentation of results.

This survey comprises a census of all Indigenous Communities and all Indigenous Housing Organisations.  The first problem facing ABS was that there was no national database of communities in any government agency.  ABS had to rely on information from disparate administrative sources, telephone directories, census records and local knowledge.  GIS has been used to assist in validating an initial list of some 1600 communities by:

• identifying and removing duplicate communities (by plotting locations on screen and identifying duplicates)
• identify and confirming that communities with alternative names were also duplicates (communities often have Aboriginal and European Names)
• adding geographic identifiers.  Once the latitude and longitudes were established, GIS techniques were used to derive codes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission regions (ATSIC regions), Statistical Local Areas, Indigenous Locations and Census Collection Districts.

The list of Indigenous Housing Organisations (IHOs) was complied in a similar way using disparate administrative sources. The incompleteness of these administrative sources was even more evident and required further validation using GIS:

• assigning latitude and longitude (geocodes) to each of the known 1000 IHOs (using the centroid of the Locality in urban areas or the centroid of the community)
• adding geographic identifiers to IHO records
• plotting IHOs and overlaying census data in urban areas to confirm the existence of IHOs in areas of a high proportion of Aboriginal population living in community houses
• providing maps of ATSIC regions to confirm locations and to assist in determining interviewer workloads. These maps show the location of IHOs and their communities and outstations.

The list of Indigenous Communities and Indigenous Housing Organisation were then matched and combined into one database - the first fully geocoded survey frame for the ABS. The frame will contain the most up-to-date information on IHOs and their communities across Australia, and to this extent it is of national importance for future ABS Indigenous collections as well as for this survey.

Results from this survey (due in March 2000) will provide up to date information on Indigenous housing, infrastructure and environmental health issues in Indigenous communities.

Geocoding of the enumeration units in the survey has increased the flexibility to provide statistics for user define regions such as environmental health regions, housing regions, and other administrative areas.   Some other thoughts on validating the results are:

• validating responses to distances to health and educational services
• presenting maps to provide geographic dispersion of the data items
• coverage checks particularly along State boarders
• developing appropriate geographic products on CD-ROM in the survey measure spatial analysis of the results - to highlight communities most in need maps

From a Bureau-wide perspective, this survey frame provides ABS with valuable information for the next population census, and plans are already underway to include all communities and outstations on census field maps.  As well, the plan is to incorporate these communities and outstations into the standard ABS Indigenous Geography classification system.

Results from this survey (due in March 2000) will provide up to date information on Indigenous housing, infrastructure and environmental health issues in Indigenous communities.  The geocoding properties in the data enables ABS to meet the growing sophistication of users and provide them with information on their specific geographic regions.

GIS techniques has provided ABS with a useful tool to assist in the development of a survey frame and in presenting future results of the Community Housing and Infrastructure Needs Survey.