In Australia, 812,000 people identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander in the 2021 Census of Population and Housing.
As of 30 June 2021, there were 984,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, representing 3.8% of the total Australian population.
Based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) projections, the number of Indigenous Australians in 2021 was estimated to be 881,600.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' rights and interests in land are formally recognised over around 50 per cent of Australia's land mass. Connection to land is of central importance to First Nations Australians.
Since legislation for Indigenous people was a state matter, each state found its own definition for 'Aboriginal'. Examples: Western Australia: a person with more than a quarter of Aboriginal blood. Victoria: any person of Aboriginal descent.
The three criteria are: being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent identifying as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person being accepted as such by the community in which you live, or formerly lived.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and Indigenous holding entities don't need to pay income tax or capital gains tax on native title payments or benefits.
The New South Wales Stolen Generations Reparations Scheme provides ex-gratia payments of $75,000 to living Stolen Generations survivors who were removed from their families and committed to the care of the New South Wales Aborigines Protection or Welfare Boards.
Taking into account the $300 million allocated for Indigenous housing and the $177 million underspend in 2021–22, the October 2022–23 Budget provides $1.1 billion more than the March 2022–23 Budget for Indigenous Australians-related matters, averaging $4.2 billion per year over the forward estimates.
The islands were settled by different seafaring Melanesian cultures such as the Torres Strait Islanders over 2500 years ago, and cultural interactions continued via this route with the Aboriginal people of northeast Australia.
In 1803, British colonisation began and in 1876, Truganini died. She was the last full-blood and tribal Tasmanian Aboriginal. Within her one lifetime, a whole society and culture were removed from the face of the earth.
It is true that there has been, historically, a small number of claims that there were people in Australia before Australian Aborigines, but these claims have all been refuted and are no longer widely debated. The overwhelming weight of evidence supports the idea that Aboriginal people were the first Australians.
There is no one Aboriginal word that all Aborigines use for Australia; however, today they call Australia, ""Australia"" because that is what it is called today. There are more than 250 aboriginal tribes in Australia. Most of them didn't have a word for ""Australia""; they just named places around them.
Some people use 'Nunga' in general reference to Indigenous peoples who reside in and around the area of Adelaide. Many Indigenous South Australians prefer people not to presume the right to use their word 'Nunga'.
It is generally held that Australian Aboriginal peoples originally came from Asia via insular Southeast Asia (now Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, and the Philippines) and have been in Australia for at least 45,000–50,000 years.
At the end of the June quarter of 2016, around 45% of Indigenous Australians aged 15 and over (220,800 people) were receiving some form of Centrelink income support payment, compared with 26% of non-Indigenous Australians of this age (4.9 million people).
The Aboriginal people living in social housing are exempt from Stamp Duty as per Section 278 of the Duties Act 1997 (NSW).
On a per person basis, government welfare expenditure was $13,968 per Indigenous Australian, compared with $6,019 per non-Indigenous Australian in 2012–13—this equates to expenditure of $2.32 per Indigenous person for every $1.00 spent per non-Indigenous person.
The National Indigenous Australians Agency funds projects aimed at helping Indigenous Australians. Funding is allocated through: the Indigenous Advancement Strategy (IAS), National Partnership Agreements, Special Accounts and Special Appropriations.
What about student fees? Eligible Aboriginal students do not pay a fee for any Smart and Skilled qualification they undertake, regardless of the number of qualifications in which they enrol, or the level of the qualification.
The Schoolkids Bonus is worth $410 for each child in primary school and $820 for each child in secondary school per year. Half is paid in January to help with back-to-school costs and half in July to help with mid-year and ongoing expenses.
But Aboriginal people are subject to the same social security laws and entitled to no more (and no less) government sponsorship than any other Australian. There has never been a government program that distributed free houses or cars, and Aboriginal students have to pay for university like everyone else.
In December 1976 the federal parliament passed the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. It was the first legislation in Australia that enabled First Nations peoples to claim land rights for Country where traditional ownership could be proven.
Aboriginal communities in NSW can claim land to compensate them for historic dispossession of land and to support their social and economic development. The Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 (ALRA) was introduced to compensate Aboriginal people in NSW for dispossession of their land.