Cerebral Soup - The Archives
5.5
Brits Abroad is a rather nifty project looking at the numbers of Britons overseas and where they are in the world.
1.3 million are apparently in Australia, which when you consider the population of Australia is 20 million, is quite a hefty chunk.
Excited by all these stats and pretty coloured maps, I searched for some updated statistics on Australians living abroad.
Oh.
From the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade:
Government Response to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee Report
The Committee recommends that the Australian Bureau of Statistics develop mechanisms for accurately enumerating the numbers of Australian citizens living overseas, with a view to facilitating their full participation in the Australian Census.
NOT ACCEPTED
The Australian census is conducted on a "de facto" basis, that is it counts all people who are actually in Australia on census night, whatever their usual residence might be. The census does not count Australian residents or citizens overseas on census night however long the duration of their absence might be.
For official population purposes, those residents overseas on census night for less than twelve months are added back into the population using information from passenger cards provided by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs and overseas visitors in Australia for less than 12 months are excluded.
The ABS currently has no plans to include those Australians who are overseas in the 2006 Census. At this stage it is not regarded as practical, nor is a quality outcome achievable. This is supported by evidence from the past experiences of Canada and the USA when they have attempted to include overseas citizens in their respective censuses. Despite their efforts they have only managed to count a small proportion of these people.
The ABS publishes monthly statistics in Overseas Arrivals and Departures, Australia (ABS cat. no. 3401.0) on the number of Australian residents leaving Australia for overseas and returning from overseas. These statistics are based on information from outgoing and incoming passenger cards provided by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs. Selected characteristics are available on request including age, sex, duration of stay/absence, country of citizenship on passport, and country of where most time was/will be spent. Whilst these statistics do not provide a stock of Australians living overseas, they do provide information on trends in the flow of Australian's travelling overseas and those returning over a long time series.
The ABS is currently taking part in a trial project being undertaken by the OECD which has the aim "to embark collectively on a joint compilation of available data on the stock of immigrants in OECD countries". This trial will be drawing on data from a variety of sources in each country including censuses, population registers and surveys, and has the possibility of being a cost effective method of obtaining information on Australians living in other OECD countries.
*Note: OECD = Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Well we had the Japan census not so long ago - I'm sure if the ABS asked nicely they would tell them how many Australians are here. So that's one country down - 192 to go!
Also they could send a memo to the Australian embassies - at least the one here in Tokyo encourages every Australian living here to register with them.
The thing is without knowing how many of us and where - just how do they expect to handle Chapter 11 of the Australia's Foreign and Trade Policy White Paper - titled Protecting Australians abroad? Apparently only if you jump up and down for their attention it seems.
Which reminds me - I haven't received an email from the Australian Embassy for over 2 years. I wonder how far I've fallen off the radar....
Posted by mjd-s on December 12, 2006 2:28 AM