The relative social and economic status of Indigenous people in Bourke, Brewarrina and Walgett

Abstract

This profile of the relative social and economic status of Indigenous people in Bourke, Brewarrina and Walgett was prepared at the request of the New South Wales State Office of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) to inform discussions to be held between ATSIC Commissioner Steve Gordon, Indigenous representatives from Far West New South Wales and the Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson. The focus of these discussions is to explore solutions to pressing social and economic problems facing Indigenous communities in these three towns. The report provides a range of social indicators constructed from a variety of published and unpublished sources including the Census of Population and Housing as well as administrative data sets held by ATSIC, Commonwealth and New South Wales government departments, and other locally-based Aboriginal organisations. This process was assisted by consultations with key informants in each of the three towns and with relevant agencies in Sydney and Canberra. <p> In a fundamental sense, planning for social and economic change is determined by the size, growth and socioeconomic composition of populations. Accordingly, the scope of this profile is limited to those aspects of social and economic life in the region that form the basis of policy interest and intervention. These include the demographic structure and residence patterns of the regional population, labour force status, education, income, welfare, housing, and health status. For each of these categories, the aim was to identify and describe the main characteristics of the population and highlight outstanding features in the data. A further aim was to compare the socioeconomic status of Indigenous residents of the region with that of their non-Indigenous counterparts.