Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People: Culture & Community

Traditional Custodians of the Land

The local community is heavily influenced by the culture and practices of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They make up Australia's Indigenous population and comprise several groups with different languages, traditions, and histories. The history and knowledge of these Indigenous communities were passed down from one generation to the next through performance, language, storytelling, elders' teachings, and the preservation of important sites. Indigenous Australians are not limited to local communities alone — they can be found all over the nation, from the cities to the expansive arid lands.

The definition the Australian government gives to Indigenous people is: people of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identify with those communities and are accepted by the communities they live in as part of the group. Not all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people willingly identify with the groups of their descent. While the number of people willing to do so has increased significantly, there is still under-counting in government statistics. Final data is often arrived at after the Australian Bureau of Statistics takes census data of people who identify as Indigenous and adjusts it to produce an estimated resident population (ERP) figure (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018, p. 1).

As European settlers were establishing themselves in 1788, Aboriginal people had already occupied the continent in its entirety and had adapted successfully to the prevailing climatic conditions of the places they inhabited, whether arid deserts or tropical rainforests. Population densities varied by climate: the greener and wetter areas had densities of approximately one person per 1 to 8 square miles, while the remote arid areas were more sparsely populated at roughly one person per 35 square miles. The estimated total population of Aboriginal people at that time stood at between 300,000 and 1,000,000. They spoke more than 200 different languages, and most people were able to speak more than one Aboriginal language. Languages were identified by the territories in which their speakers lived, and groups were named after the languages they spoke — referred to by European settlers as "tribes."

The number of such groups was large; it is estimated that there may have been more than 500 distinct groups, each with specifically defined territories. Members of a group would interact mainly with other members of their own group. These groups had no active political affiliations, nor were they oriented to general political or economic forces. Instead, they were oriented toward more local memberships and affiliations. While Aborigines had no shared consciousness of a national identity, their worldview extended well beyond their immediate groups, as they appreciated the place of different communities in making up a functional society (Tonkinson & Berndt, 2019).

Demographics and Religious Affiliation

A significant portion of the Australian population today identifies as Indigenous. In 2016, 3.3% of the Australian population identified as such. Between 2011 and 2016, the Indigenous population grew at a markedly higher rate than the non-Indigenous population — a 19% increase compared to 8.0%. People of Aboriginal origin made up 91% of those who identified as Indigenous, while those of Torres Strait Islander origin made up 5.0%. People of both Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal origins made up 4.1% of the Indigenous population (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018, p. 1).

Religion plays a significant role in the lives of people in the local community, and the makeup of religious affiliation mirrors the national outlook. During the 2016 census, data was gathered on the religious affiliations of Australians. Nationally, people who do not hold any religious belief or practice make up 30.1% of the population. Catholics account for 22.6%, Anglican Christians 13.3%, Uniting Church members 3.7%, those who identify as Christian in general 2.6%, Muslims 2.6%, Buddhists 2.4%, Presbyterians 2.3%, Baptists 1.5%, those who identify with Eastern Orthodox 2.1%, and those who identify with Hinduism 1.9%. Those affiliated with the Lutheran Church make up 0.7%, Pentecostals 1.1%, Sikhs 0.5%, Jehovah's Witnesses 0.4%, Seventh-day Adventists 0.3%, and Latter-day Saints 0.3%, while members of various other Protestant groups make up 0.5%. Those affiliated with Oriental Orthodox and Judaism account for 0.2% and 0.4% respectively (Australian Population, 2018).

Indigenous-Specific Health Services

Government services in the local community are intended to reach all people with equal ease. To evaluate whether Indigenous people have their needs met by the local healthcare system, it is important to assess their access to healthcare services and their usage of those services. Indigenous people have the option of accessing mainstream healthcare or using Indigenous-specific primary health care services (ISPHCs). These tailored services offer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of illnesses across various settings, and can be accessed in local communities through community clinics. Some public hospitals also offer Indigenous-specific services.

A great deal has been done to ensure that Indigenous people have easy access to health care in Australia. Access is a broad term that may refer to geographical, financial, or cultural accessibility, or to whether local health centers have the capacity to meet demand. Data on accessibility specific to local communities can be difficult to find, and service utilization is often used as an alternative indicator. Nationally, relative to the general population, Indigenous Australians are high users of the nation's hospital services.

Excluding dialysis, Indigenous Australians accounted for 458,000 hospitalizations between July 2013 and June 2015 — a rate 1.3 times higher than that of non-Indigenous people. Dialysis-related hospitalizations for Indigenous Australians accounted for an additional 393,000 hospitalizations. One notable finding from the data is that the rate of hospitalizations for Indigenous people could be reduced if action were taken to provide non-hospital services or primary care for potentially preventable conditions (PHHs). The occurrence of PHHs was three times that of non-Indigenous Australians (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018).

References

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2018, Profile of indigenous Australians. Available from https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/f29b7dd4-695a-4f9f-a508-ecdacc52beca/aihw-aus-221-chapter-6-1.pdf.aspx. [26 January 2019].

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2018, Indigenous Australians' access to and use of health services. Available from https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/3a2cdfb0-ba14-4b14-b6ac-039dcf35c5e3/aihw-aus-221-chapter-6-8.pdf.aspx. [26 January 2019].

Australia Population 2018, Australian population 2019. Available from http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/australia/. [26 January 2019].

NSW Government 2018, Places of significance. Available from [26 January 2019].

NSW Department of Community Services 2009, Working with Aboriginal people and communities: A practice resource. Available from http://www.carersaustralia.com.au/storage/2011Working%20with%20Aboriginal%20People%20and%20Communities.pdf. [26 January 2019].

State Government of Victoria 2018, Aboriginal cultural heritage of Victoria. Available from [26 January 2019].

Tonkinson, R & Berndt, RM 2019, 'Australian Aboriginal people', Encyclopedia Britannica. Available from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Australian-Aboriginal. [26 January 2019].