Measuring Maori in Australia: insights and obstacles.

• Author: Hamer, Paul
• Position: Report

Abstract

There are now as many as one in six Maori living in Australia. Due to census practice and a lack of administrative data in Australia on ethnicity, it has been, and remains, difficult to calculate their number or assess their characteristics. Despite these challenges, important insights for social policy in New Zealand can be gained from endeavouring to do so.

CHALLENGES TO MEASURING MAORI IN THE AUSTRALIAN CENSUS

The Australian census does not have an ethnicity question. Instead, it asks respondents to select the ancestry or ancestries with which they "most closely identify" (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006:7). The most common responses from the previous census are included as tick-box options to speed data processing, but since these are also all nationalities--including "Australian"--other examples are specifically provided on the form to show that ancestry rather than nationality is being sought. These include Hmong, Kurdish and Maori.

An ancestry question was first used in Australia in 1986. With the dismantling of the "White Australia" policy in the early 1970s, and the influx since then of large numbers of "new Australians", the question was intended to measure the manifest changes in the composition of the Australian population. In the lead-up to the formulation of the 1986 census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics had given active consideration to whether to measure ancestry or ethnicity (Kurtz and Costello 2003:4). The former was chosen, but it was hardly an unqualified success. Due to a high non-response rate and confusion as to its meaning, the ancestry question was shelved for the 1991 and 1996 Australian censuses while officials considered different types of questions that might yield better-informed responses. A question on ancestry was reinstated in the 2001 census and retained in very similar form in 2006. It has nevertheless continued to have its limitations, as we shall see.

In 1986 respondents were invited to trace their ancestry back to their grandparents and were given space to insert up to three nominated ancestries. The intention can never have been to count all three, however, as the form had only two coding boxes beneath these three lines. This led to an unknown number of lost ancestries. For groups with typically high multiple-ancestry response rates, such as New Zealanders (including Maori), this would have had a disproportionate impact, although country of birth figures provided an alternative (and certainly more satisfactory) means of measuring the number of New Zealanders in Australia. The Maori total of 26,035 people had other problems: it included more than one thousand Cook Island Maori, (2) whom demographer Jeremy Lowe was told had been included in the same code (1990:7).

On top of these challenges, the subsequent dropping of the ancestry question, coupled with the 1986 removal of the ethnic origin question from New Zealand arrival and departure cards, suddenly made it practically impossible to calculate the size of the rapidly growing Maori population in Australia. Those interested in this population were relieved, therefore, when the ancestry question was returned in 2001. This time the census gave a total of 72,956 Maori, but the impact of lost ancestries was even greater. This was because census respondents were invited to trace their ancestry back to their great-grandparents, and were given space on the form to enter several unlisted ancestries, but again were not advised...