Pasifika Data in Australia

Pasifika Data in Australia

One of the greatest challenges Pasifika peoples have in Australia is access to accurate data. Because most have migrated here through New Zealand citizenship, they are counted as New Zealand migrants. The ethnicities of Pasifika peoples is obscured because of their citizenship, and because most data collection tools don’t ask questions beyond citizenship, it is very difficult to know the Pasifika statistics generally.

Without accurate and clean data government departments, community groups, and other institutions and services are limited in their ability to strategically plan. Of course, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that suggests Pasifika peoples have high/low representation in certain areas, but this is not sufficiently grounded enough to justify funding, resources or even closer examination.

The best resource that we have in terms of Pasifika data, is the attached report provided by Assoc. Prof. Jioji Ravulo now of University of Wollongong. Great work by Jioji and the team!