Indigenous Peoples and the Australian census: value, trust, and participation

In this commentary we, as a group of Indigenous academics, trace the relationship between the Australian census and Indigenous peoples, addressing historical and present dimensions through the dual lens of value and trust. Although we come from various disciplines including statistics, public health, social science, and human geography, our approach and analysis is firmly rooted in, and builds upon, postcolonial demography that Kukutai & Taylor (2012 p. 14) state, “highlights the epistemological and methodological shortcomings of applied demographic research on Indigenous peoples, and generates calls for more innovative approaches.”