Big mining centres want census to count

WESTERN Australia’s major mining centres are united in their efforts to ensure the 2011 census accurately records their growing populations and the elusive fly-in, fly-out population.

Significant under-counting at mine sites and in indigenous communities has seen many of the state’s regional centres miss out on vital funds in the past five years.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures that are drawn from the census play a pivotal role in planning across all levels of government as well as informing private investment and funding decisions, including the allocation of GST.

Kalgoorlie-Boulder mayor Ron Yuryevich conservatively estimates the figures collected from the 2006 census underestimated the region’s population by at least 10 per cent.

He said the record passenger numbers moving through the airport demonstrated the impact of the fly-in, fly-out workers.

“With the last census there was absolutely no correlation with the numbers produced and what we have on the ground here,” Mr Yuryevich said.

“I am not saying that the census is not recording properly but the people who live in our town do not (accurately) record where they spend more than six months of their year.

“Up here you can go to a four-bedroom house and you will see three different utes out the front … they will deliver one (census) package there and one guy will fill it in but the other three people living in the other rooms won’t bother.”

But it’s not just the population numbers that are important.

Mid West Development Commission chief executive Steve Douglas said the census was coming at an important time in terms of major projects in the region.

“Those big projects are big employers and we would like to think we can capture some of the opportunities from those projects locally and get some of those workers living locally,” Mr Douglas said.

Building a picture of the indigenous population in many of these centres is equally challenging and Census WA has invested heavily to ensure there is not a repeat of the 24 per cent under-count from 2006.

Census WA director Mike Scott said the census was an opportunity to improve living conditions by giving the government the raw data it needed to plan for education, health and housing.

“First and foremost, our goal is to count everyone and mining and indigenous (populations) are the two key issues for WA,” Mr Scott said.

Census WA puts on a workforce of more than 3000 people to collect forms, which presents its own difficulties in regional areas where it’s often hard to recruit personnel.

But there are also cultural issues, including concerns about how the government uses the personal information.

“There are no links between our information and Homeswest or Centrelink that people need to worry about,” Mr Scott said.

“With the indigenous population we will also be offering household interviews rather than just dropping off a form,” Mr Scott said.

“And one of our main pushes for this census is the e-census. We trialled it in 2006 and got just under a 10 per cent take-up and we are aiming to get it up over 40 per cent this time.”

Port Hedland mayor Kelly Howlett is so determined to set the record straight in August she has signed up to be a collector.

Ms Howlett said under-counting was denying Port Hedland residents and workers important services and discouraging private sector investment in the town.

“Whether it’s grant allocation or provision of public services, we need to make sure it matches a town of the right size,” she said.

“A lot of the brands and businesses that should be in town aren’t here because they don’t think the business is there.”