Income, Poverty and Inequality

This paper uses data from the 2006, 2011 and 2016 censuses to analyse the distribution of income within the Indigenous population, and between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. Particular attention is given to geographic variation in Indigenous income, poverty and inequality. The findings of this paper show a growing divergence between the incomes of Indigenous people in urban areas and remote areas. Although Indigenous incomes are growing steadily in urban areas, where median disposable equivalised household income rose by $57 per week in real terms between 2011 and 2016, median disposable equivalised household income in very remote areas fell by$12 per week over the same period. Indigenous cash poverty rates in very remote areas rose from 46.9% in 2011 to 53.4% in 2016. During this period, poverty rates in urban areas continued to fall, reaching 24.4% in 2016. Finally, changes in the difference in the incomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians followed a similar pattern, with income gaps shrinking in urban areas while growing rapidly in very remote areas. Although the increased incomes in urban and regional areas � where the majority of the Indigenous population lives � should be welcomed, this paper highlights a great divergence in the material circumstances of the Indigenous population across Australia. Urgent policy action is required to ameliorate the growing prevalence of poverty among Indigenous people in very remote AustraliaFunding for this project was provided by the Australian Government Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Indigenous identification change between 2011 and 2016: evidence from the Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset

Growth in the Indigenous population between the 2011 and 2016 Censuses was much faster than would be predicted by our best estimates of fertility and mortality. Part of this faster than projected growth came from a larger number of people who identified as Indigenous in 2016 but not in 2011, compared to those who identified as Indigenous in 2011 but not 2016. That is, there was a net increase in the population due to identification change. In this paper, we use a new dataset – the Australian Census Longitudinal Database – to analyse the characteristics of this identification change, as well as the implications for our understanding of changes in socioeconomic outcomes

Indigenous Population change in the 2016 Census

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the changing size and spatial distribution of the Indigenous population of Australia, comparing the results of the 2011 and 2016 censuses. The paper summarises five key aspects of the intercensal change: - the growth in the estimated population of Indigenous Australians - the changing geographic distribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people - the growth in the number of census records with indeterminate Indigenous status - the spatial mismatch between demographic projections from the 2011 Census and 2016 Census counts - the potential for identification change to confound changes in socioeconomic outcomes. We show that the Indigenous population grew rapidly between 2011 and 2016, reaching around 3.3% of the total population estimate, or 798 381 people. This was most likely due to a combination of natural increase and changing patterns of identification. Both aspects of growth were concentrated in more urban parts of the country, especially coastal New South Wales and southeast Queensland. We suggest that care needs to be taken when interpreting Indigenous population change between 2011 and 2016, because of both unexplained population growth and a substantial increase in the number of census records with no answer to the Indigenous status question. In particular, we suggest that identification change may lead to an apparent convergence in the outcomes between the observed Indigenous and observed non-Indigenous populations through time, without there necessarily being any improvement in the life circumstances of individual Indigenous Australians.Funding for this project was provided by the Australian Government Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Regional Centres

Regional centres are an important but often overlooked set of areas with particular policy and population dynamics. In this paper, we identify 43 regional centres which we have defined as having a total population of between 10,000 and 250,000 with at least 1,000 Indigenous usual residents. These areas paper contain substantially more Indigenous Australians overall than remote Indigenous communities (23 per cent of the total Australian Indigenous population in 2011). However, the Indigenous population in these areas tend to make up a greater share of the population than in Australia?s major cities. Despite this, policy interest is very rarely devoted to individual regional centres or to regional centres as a separate geographic grouping. Compared to the rest of the Australian Indigenous population, as well as the non-Indigenous population of the 43 selected regional centres, those Indigenous Australians living there were relatively young. Partly because of this relatively young age distribution, the Indigenous population in the selected regional centres was relatively mobile, both in the short-term and over the long-term. One of the innovations of this paper was the development of an index of mobility which was analysed alongside an index of socioeconomic outcomes. The intersection of these indices identified four regional centres of particular policy concern. Specifically, compared to the other regional centres Port Augusta, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie-Boulder and Hervey Bay were identified as having a relatively disadvantaged Indigenous population, as well as a highly mobile population.The analysis in the series was funded by the Commonwealth Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) through the Strategic Research Project as well as FaHCSIA and State/Territory governments through the Indigenous Populations Project

Mobility

This paper aims to provide an updated description of the migration patterns of Indigenous Australians over the last intercensal period and to compare these with previous patterns, as well as those from the non-Indigenous population. Indigenous Australians are a highly mobile population. They were substantially more likely to be away from their place of usual residence on the night of the census and more likely to make permanent moves over the five years leading up to the 2011 Census. In addition, Indigenous Australians are more likely to make moves that involve a change in location type. Indigenous mobility appears to have had the effect of causing a structural realignment of the Indigenous population from relatively remote parts of the country to more urban ones. After controlling for a range of other characteristics, Indigenous Australians who changed their area of usual residence were more likely to move to a large regional town (and to a lesser extent a city area or remote town) than to a small regional town, regional rural area, Indigenous town or remote dispersed settlement.The analysis in the series was funded by the Commonwealth Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) through the Strategic Research Project as well as FaHCSIA and State/Territory governments through the Indigenous Populations Project

Rotating biological contactors for wastewater treatment - A review

Rotating biological contactors (RBCs) for wastewater treatment began in the 1970s. Removal of organic matter has been targeted within organic loading rates of up to 120 g m−2 d−1 with an optimum at around 15 g m−2 d−1 for combined BOD and ammonia removal. Full nitrification is achievable under appropriate process conditions with oxidation rates of up to 6 g m−2 d−1 reported for municipal wastewater. The RBC process has been adapted for denitrification with reported removal rates of up to 14 g m−2 d−1 with nitrogen rich wastewaters. Different media types can be used to improve organic/nitrogen loading rates through selecting for different bacterial groups. The RBC has been applied with only limited success for enhanced biological phosphorus removal and attained up to 70% total phosphorus removal. Compared to other biofilm processes, RBCs had 35% lower energy costs than trickling filters but higher demand than wetland systems. However, the land footprint for the same treatment is lower than these alternatives. The RBC process has been used for removal of priority pollutants such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products. The RBC system has been shown to eliminate 99% of faecal coliforms and the majority of other wastewater pathogens. Novel RBC reactors include systems for energy generation such as algae, methane production and microbial fuel cells for direct current generation. Issues such as scale up remain challenging for the future application of RBC technology and topics such as phosphorus removal and denitrification still require further research. High volumetric removal rate, solids retention, low footprint, hydraulic residence times are characteristics of RBCs. The RBC is therefore an ideal candidate for hybrid processes for upgrading works maximising efficiency of existing infrastructure and minimising energy consumption for nutrient removal. This review will provide a link between disciplines and discuss recent developments in RBC research and comparison of recent process designs are provided (Section 2). The microbial features of the RBC biofilm are highlighted (Section 3) and topics such as biological nitrogen removal and priority pollutant remediation are discussed (Sections 4 and 5). Developments in kinetics and modelling are highlighted (Section 6) and future research themes are mentioned

Microbial extracellular enzyme activity affects performance in a full-scale modified activated sludge process

The rate-limiting step of wastewater treatment is the breakdown of polymers by extracellular enzyme activity (EEA). The efficacy of EEA on biomass from full scale conventional activated sludge (AS) and modified AS with bench scale and full scale rotating biofilm reactors (RBR) was compared. The maximum amino-peptidase EEA was 394 ± 34 μmolL−1 min−1 for the bench RBR which was 11.7 and 4.5 times greater than maximum α-glucosidase and phosphatase EEA in these reactors. At full scale the RBR gave ~4.6, 13.5 and 6.3 times the EEA for amino-peptidase, α-glucosidase and phosphatase (based on enzyme Vmax) compared to the highest EEA in conventional AS biomass. Controlled overloading of the bench RBRs revealed that EEA increased with OLR up to 190 g tCOD m−2d−1 and further increases in OLR reduced the EEA. Pretreatment of wastewater by EEA in the RBR was linked to better performance of the modified activated sludge process. Maintaining high EEA of biofilms is critical for the design of high OLR wastewater treatment systems

2006-16 Aboriginal Population Change in New South Wales

The New South Wales (NSW) Aboriginal population is one of the fastest growing in the country. Estimates for the total Indigenous population in the state increased from around 189 000 in 2006 to around 267 000 in 2016. This very rapid growth is likely to lead to a significant number of policy challenges, and opportunities. The aim of this paper is to use data from the Census of Population and Housing in 2006, 2011 and 2016, as well as the associated Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset, to analyse the composition and implications of change in the Aboriginal population in NSW. We show that some, but not all, of the growth in the Aboriginal population between 2006 and 2016 was driven by identification change (a net infow of people who previously did not identify as being Indigenous but now do), as well as contributions from births and interstate migration. We also show that, although the Indigenous population in 2016 in NSW had substantially better socioeconomic outcomes than the 2006 and 2011 populations, a significant component of this improvement was because the newly identified Aboriginal population had more favourable outcomes than the always-identified population.This item was commisioned by Social Research Centre & AN

Describing the top of the income distribution in Australia

In this paper, we use a new source of linked Australian census, tax, social security and Medicare data to analyse the characteristics of those who were at the very top of the income distribution in 2011. The Basic Longitudinal Extract 2011 (BLE2011), from the Multi-Agency Data Integration Project (MADIP) overcomes a number of limitations of previous datasets. In addition to providing tax data for a very large proportion of the adult population, it combines census data linked at the individual level. Importantly, it has a household identifier, which allows us to calculate the distribution of equivalised household income, as well as the distribution of individual income. We show that there is quite substantial movement in and out of the top of the income distribution, depending on whether we use individual or household data. Furthermore, despite some assumptions to the contrary in the popular discourse, a much higher proportion of people at the top of the equivalised household taxable income distribution are professionals, as opposed to managers. Finally, although receipt of social security is quite low at the very top of the income distribution, a nonnegligible number of people in the top 2% of the income distribution still received some form of payment or allowance; the most common payments were Carer Allowance, the Seniors Health Card, the Age Pension, and Family Tax Benefit Part B and Part A (in that order)