Religion, “Non-Religion” and Indigenous Peoples on the 2011 Australian National Census

Abstract

The 2011 Australian National Census revealed trends in the religious identities and affiliations of Australians that demonstrated wide cultural and religious diversity amongst the population, including a dramatic growth in the percentage of respondents who ticked the “no religion” box. This might suggest an increasingly secularised population, although this conclusion is not as straightforward as it may seem, particularly in light of the growth of religions other than Christianity and evidence that many “non-religious” people identify as “spiritual”. One surprising result, which calls for more investigation and analysis, is that a higher percentage of indigenous people declared themselves as having no religion than the general population. This article examines the overall results of the 2011 census on religion and non religion in Australia and then offers some preliminary interpretations of the census responses of Australian Aboriginals in light of two pilot studies conducted by the authors in 2013: one in the urban setting of Mount Druitt, near Sydney and the other in the remote village of Ampilatwatja around 325 kilometres northeast of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory