Ian Hamm is the chair of the First Nations Foundation and says this is an element of the census that needs to be looked at.

The problem with an average is it doesn't actually speak about anyone because it's an average of everyone.

What we might find is that that rapid increase in data, and we may well find something like that in this census, and without drilling down just beyond absolute numbers, we're losing a lot of the critical nuances and complexities that we need to understand about different Aboriginal communities.

What's called for

at that level? This is really important that traditionally, as I said, big focus on social policy, very little on economic policy, right? So the main levers of the economy in government haven't really been involved.

So it's mostly been run out of the Aboriginal lead agency at the time, which now it's NIAA at the Commonwealth level.

So that's changed.

So there is now work being done in the Commonwealth and it's usually too, this is the other thing, it's usually only been, and I would say micro-targeted.

So it's been we will do a jobs program in the remote communities of the Northern Territory.

We will do tourism in X. Band-Aid fixes.

What's your belief that a strong and independent First Nations economy in this country is in the best interests of the entire country?