These are some top line points from the Census:
- 96.1% of Australians completed the Census, up from 95.1% in 2016. Data was collected on over 350 languages and over 250 ancestries.
- 812,728 people (3.2%) identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. That's up from 649,200 (2.8%) in 2016.
- More than half of all Australians are first or second-generation migrants. Nearly half of Australians have a parent born overseas (48.2%) and nearly a third of Australians (27.6%) are born overseas.
Taking a closer look at two categories in the Census — the ancestry and language used at home, Census results were encouraging.
In the language used in the home category, the figures show there are 38,534 people speaking Assyrian Neo-Aramaic in 2021 compared to 28,349 in the 2016 Census, an increase of 35.9%. Those speaking Chaldean Neo-Aramaic number 21,684 in 2021 compared to 17,172 in the 2016 census, an increase of 26.3%. The Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic total is therefore 60,218.
This increase in the number of communities means the Australian government will try to increase the services and support in line with the uptick.
Oliver Slewa and Ninos Emmanuel discussed the results. More discussions and interviews are to come as more analyses and figures are published in the very near future.
