"Real Indigenous people live in the bush"
The highest proportion of Indigenous Australians live in Sydney. In 2006, 31% of Indigenous people in Australia lived in major cities; 22% lived in inner regional Australia; 23% in outer regional Australia; 8% in remote Australia and 16% in very remote Australia2.
Not as many Indigenous people live in the bush compared to urban and regional areas. It is important to remember that a person does not stop being Aboriginal because they have a western lifestyle; the two cultures do not cancel each other out.
The legal definition provided by the Federal Court declares a person is Indigenous when they are of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, that person identifies with the culture and is accepted as such by the community in which they live3, whether that community is in Yuendumu, Redfern or Perth, they are no ‘more or less’ Indigenous because of where they live.
LINKS
Population distribution Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians
- Population and diversity: Policy implications of emerging Indigenous demographic trends
This paper prepared by John Taylor at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research explores the public policy impact of changing Indigenous population dynamics.
2 ABS, Population Distribution, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians 2006 4705.0
3 Gibbs v Capewell (1995) 128 ALR 577 and reaffirmed in Shaw v Wolf (1999) 163 ALR 205.
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