Division of Boothby
The Division of Boothby is an Australian electoral division in South Australia. The division was one of the seven established when the former Division of South Australia was redistributed on 2 October 1903 and is named after William Boothby, the Returning Officer for the first federal election. At the 2016 federal election, the seat covered 130 km², extending from Clarence Gardens and Urrbrae in the north to Marino and part of Happy Valley in the south, including the suburbs of Aberfoyle Park, Blackwood, Daw Park, Eden Hills, Flagstaff Hill, Mitcham, Seacliff, St Marys and Panorama. Before 1949 and the creation of the Division of Sturt, Boothby covered most of the southern and eastern suburbs of Adelaide, changed hands several times between the Liberal Party of Australia and the Australian Labor Party; the 1949 expansion of parliament saw parts of the southern portion transferred to the newly created Division of Kingston and parts of the eastern portion transferred to the newly created Sturt.
This saw Boothby change from a marginal Labor seat on a 1.8 percent two-party margin to a marginal Liberal seat on a two percent two-party margin. However, as part of the massive Liberal victory in the 1949 election, the Liberals picked up a 9.3 percent two-party swing, turning it into a safe Liberal seat in one stroke. The Liberals have held the seat since, for most of that time it has been safe to safe for that party. There was only one substantial redistribution in the past few decades, when Boothby absorbed parts of the abolished Division of Hawker prior to the 1993 election; this cut the Liberal margin by more than half, from a safe 10.7 two-party margin to a marginal notional 4.5 percent two-party margin. However, the Liberals won the seat on a safe 7.8 percent two-party margin. Today Boothby extends from Belair in the east to Brighton and Seacliff in the west. Boothby's most prominent members were Sir John McLeay, Speaker 1956-66, his son John, Jr. a minister in the Fraser government, former state premier Steele Hall.
Hall retired before at the 1996 election and the seat was held from 1996-2016 by Andrew Southcott. At the 2004 election, despite a solid national two-party swing and vote to the Liberals, Boothby became a marginal Liberal seat for the first time in over half a century, with Labor's Chloë Fox reducing the Liberal margin to 5.4 percent as incumbent Andrew Southcott narrowly won enough primary votes to retain the seat without the need for preferences. Labor's Nicole Cornes reduced Southcott's margin further to 2.9 percent at the 2007 election. At the 2010 election Labor's Annabel Digance came within 638 votes of ending the long Liberal run in the seat. At 0.75 percent Boothby was the most marginal seat in South Australia. However, Boothby became a safe Liberal seat again at the 2013 election. In 2015, Southcott announced his retirement from parliament to take effect at the 2016 federal election; the Liberals preselected newspaper columnist Nicolle Flint. Labor preselected 2015 Davenport state by-election candidate Mark Ward.
The Nick Xenophon Team announced Mitcham councillor Karen Hockley as their candidate. ABC psephologist Antony Green's 2016 federal election guide for South Australia stated NXT had a "strong chance of winning lower house seats and three or four Senate seats". Flint won the contest. Australian federal election, 2016 Results of the Australian federal election, 2016 ABC profile for Boothby: 2016 Poll Bludger profile for Boothby: 2016 AEC profile for Boothby: 2016 SA boundary map, 2001: AEC SA boundary map, 1984: Atlas SA
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia; the term of members of the House of Representatives is a maximum of three years from the date of the first sitting of the House, but on only one occasion since Federation has the maximum term been reached. The House is always dissolved earlier alone but sometimes in a double dissolution of both Houses. Elections for members of the House of Representatives are held in conjunction with those for the Senate. A member of the House may be referred to as a "Member of Parliament", while a member of the Senate is referred to as a "Senator"; the government of the day and by extension the Prime Minister must achieve and maintain the confidence of this House in order to gain and remain in power. The House of Representatives consists of 150 members, elected by and representing single member districts known as electoral divisions.
The number of members is not fixed but can vary with boundary changes resulting from electoral redistributions, which are required on a regular basis. The most recent overall increase in the size of the House, which came into effect at the 1984 election, increased the number of members from 125 to 148, it reduced to 147 at the 1993 election, returned to 148 at the 1996 election, has been 150 since the 2001 election, will increase to 151 at the 2019 Australian federal election. Each division elects one member using full-preference Instant-runoff voting; this was put in place after the 1918 Swan by-election, which Labor unexpectedly won with the largest primary vote and the help of vote splitting in the conservative parties. The Nationalist government of the time changed the lower house voting system from first-past-the-post to full-preference preferential voting, effective from the 1919 general election; this system has remained in place since, allowing the Coalition parties to safely contest the same seats.
The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act of 1900 established the House of Representatives as part of the new system of dominion government in newly federated Australia. The House is presided over by the Speaker. Members of the House are elected from single member electorates. One vote, one value legislation requires all electorates to have the same number of voters with a maximum 10% variation. However, the baseline quota for the number of voters in an electorate is determined by the number of voters in the state in which that electorate is found; the electorates of the smallest states and territories have more variation in the number of voters in their electorates, with larger seats like Fenner containing more than double the electors of smaller seats like Lingiari. Meanwhile, all the states except Tasmania have electorates within the same 10% tolerance, with most electorates holding 85,000 to 105,000 voters. Federal electorates have their boundaries redrawn or redistributed whenever a state or territory has its number of seats adjusted, if electorates are not matched by population size or if seven years have passed since the most recent redistribution.
Voting is by the'preferential system' known as instant-runoff voting. A full allocation of preferences is required for a vote to be considered formal; this allows for a calculation of the two-party-preferred vote. Under Section 24 of the Constitution, each state is entitled to members based on a population quota determined from the "latest statistics of the Commonwealth." These statistics arise from the census conducted under the auspices of section 51. Until its repeal by the 1967 referendum, section 127 prohibited the inclusion of Aboriginal people in section 24 determinations as including the Indigenous peoples could alter the distribution of seats between the states to the benefit of states with larger Aboriginal populations. Section 127, along with section 25 and the race power, have been described as racism built into Australia's constitutional DNA, modifications to prevent lawful race-based discrimination have been proposed; the parliamentary entitlement of a state or territory is established by the Electoral Commissioner dividing the number of the people of the Commonwealth by twice the number of Senators.
This is known as the "Nexus Provision". The reasons for this are twofold, to maintain a constant influence for the smaller states and to maintain a constant balance of the two Houses in case of a joint sitting after a double dissolution; the population of each state and territory is divided by this quota to determine the number of members to which each state and territory is entitled. Under the Australian Constitution all original states are guaranteed at least five members; the Federal Parliament itself has decided that the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory should have at least one member each. According to the Constitution, the powers of both Houses are nearly equal, with the consent of both Houses needed to pass legislation; the difference relates to taxation legislation. In practice, by convention, the person who can control a majority of votes in the lower house is invited by the Governor-General to form the Government. In practice that means that the leader of the party with a majority of members in the House becomes the Prime Minister, who can nominate other elected members of the government party in both the House and the Senate to become ministe
Country music
Country music known as country and western, hillbilly music, is a genre of popular music that originated in the southern United States in the early 1920s. It takes its roots from genres such as folk blues. Country music consists of ballads and dance tunes with simple forms, folk lyrics, harmonies accompanied by string instruments such as banjos and acoustic guitars, steel guitars, fiddles as well as harmonicas. Blues modes have been used extensively throughout its recorded history. According to Lindsey Starnes, the term country music gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to the earlier term hillbilly music. In 2009 in the United States, country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, second most popular in the morning commute; the term country music is used today to describe many subgenres. The origins of country music are found in the folk music of working class Americans, who blended popular songs and Celtic fiddle tunes, traditional English ballads, cowboy songs, the musical traditions of various groups of European immigrants.
Immigrants to the southern Appalachian Mountains of eastern North America brought the music and instruments of Europe along with them for nearly 300 years. Country music was "introduced to the world as a Southern phenomenon." The U. S. Congress has formally recognized Bristol, Tennessee as the "Birthplace of Country Music", based on the historic Bristol recording sessions of 1927. Since 2014, the city has been home to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. Historians have noted the influence of the less-known Johnson City sessions of 1928 and 1929, the Knoxville sessions of 1929 and 1930. In addition, the Mountain City Fiddlers Convention, held in 1925, helped to inspire modern country music. Before these, pioneer settlers, in the Great Smoky Mountains region, had developed a rich musical heritage; the first generation emerged in the early 1920s, with Atlanta's music scene playing a major role in launching country's earliest recording artists. New York City record label Okeh Records began issuing hillbilly music records by Fiddlin' John Carson as early as 1923, followed by Columbia Records in 1924, RCA Victor Records in 1927 with the first famous pioneers of the genre Jimmie Rodgers and the first family of country music The Carter Family.
Many "hillbilly" musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs throughout the 1920s. During the second generation, radio became a popular source of entertainment, "barn dance" shows featuring country music were started all over the South, as far north as Chicago, as far west as California; the most important was the Grand Ole Opry, aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville and continuing to the present day. During the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or Western music, recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood. Bob Wills was another country musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become popular as the leader of a "hot string band," and who appeared in Hollywood westerns, his mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, would become known as Western swing. Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had been played at Carnegie Hall, when Johnny Barfield recorded "Boogie Woogie".
The third generation started at the end of World War II with "mountaineer" string band music known as bluegrass, which emerged when Bill Monroe, along with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs were introduced by Roy Acuff at the Grand Ole Opry. Gospel music remained a popular component of country music. Another type of stripped-down and raw music with a variety of moods and a basic ensemble of guitar, dobro or steel guitar became popular among poor whites in Texas and Oklahoma, it became known as honky tonk, had its roots in Western swing and the ranchera music of Mexico and the border states. By the early 1950s a blend of Western swing, country boogie, honky tonk was played by most country bands. Rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s, 1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music, with Johnny Cash emerging as one of the most popular and enduring representatives of the rockabilly genre. Beginning in the mid-1950s, reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the Nashville sound turned country music into a multimillion-dollar industry centered in Nashville, Tennessee.
The late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of traditionalist backlash within separate genres. In the aftermath of the British Invasion, many desired a return to the "old values" of rock n' roll. At the same time there was a lack of enthusiasm in the country sector for Nashville-produced music. What resulted was a crossbred genre known as country rock. Fourth generation music included outlaw country with roots in the Bakersfield sound, country pop with roots in the countrypolitan, folk music and soft rock. Between 1972 and 1975 singer/guitarist John Denver released a se
Mount Lofty Ranges
The Mount Lofty Ranges are the range of mountains just to the east of Adelaide in the Australian state of South Australia. The Mount Lofty Ranges stretch from the southernmost point of the Fleurieu Peninsula at Cape Jervis northwards for over 300 kilometres before petering out north of Peterborough. In the vicinity of Adelaide, they separate the Adelaide Plains from the extensive plains that surround the Murray River and stretch eastwards to Victoria; the Heysen Trail traverses the entire length of the ranges, crossing westwards to the Flinders Ranges near Hallett. The mountains have a Mediterranean climate with moderate rainfall brought by south-westerly winds, hot summers and cool winters; the southern ranges are wetter than the northern ranges. The part of the ranges south of and including the Barossa Valley are known as the South Mount Lofty Ranges, the highest part of this section is the summit of Mount Lofty; the part of the ranges nearest Adelaide is called the Adelaide Hills and, further north, the Barossa Range.
The ranges encompass a wide variety of land usage, including significant residential development concentrated in the foothills, suburbs of Stirling and Bridgewater, the towns Mount Barker and Victor Harbor in particular. Several pine plantation forests exist, most around Mount Crawford and Cudlee Creek in the north and Kuitpo Forest and Second Valley in the south. Several protected areas exist near Adelaide where the hills face the city in order to preserve sought-after residential land: Black Hill Conservation Park, Cleland Conservation Park and Belair National Park are the largest; the other significant parks in the southern ranges are Deep Creek Conservation Park, on the rugged southern shores of the Fleurieu Peninsula, Para Wirra Conservation Park at the southern edge of the Barossa Valley. There are many wineries in the ranges. Two wine regions in particular are world-renowned: McLaren Vale. Grapes are grown in the Adelaide Hills and the Onkaparinga Valley. Although no major mines operate in the southern ranges today, there are several large disused ones, a myriad of small ones.
An iron sulfide mine at Brukunga, northeast of Mount Barker, operated from 1955 to 1972, proving a valuable source for the production of superphosphate fertilisers vital for the postwar development of the State's outlying agricultural areas. The runoff from the mine proved quite toxic for the local environment, efforts have been underway since to alleviate the damage. A small short-lived silver and lead mine in the foothills of the ranges at Glen Osmond was first opened just two years after the founding of the State in 1836: it is significant for being not only the first metal mine in the history of the State, but the first in all Australia. South Australia never experienced a nineteenth-century gold rush like those interstate, but gold was mined near both Echunga and Williamstown. Other mines in the southern ranges include a nineteenth-century silver-lead mine at Talisker near Cape Jervis, which features many remaining old buildings, the limestone mine at Rapid Bay, which ceased operations much more recently.
Copper was mined at Kapunda and Kanmantoo and may be again and a zinc mine is proposed near Strathalbyn. Quarries dot the most spectacular and massive of which are in the Adelaide foothills. Only one railway now crosses the ranges: the major Adelaide-Melbourne line, first constructed in the 1870s and has had only minor realignments since. Passenger services used to run from the city to Bridgewater in the heart of the hills and ranges, but now stop at Belair in the foothills. A railway approaches the ranges at Willunga; the Mount Barker to Victor Harbor line skirts the eastern edge of the ranges. North of Adelaide, there is a railway to Angaston in the east of the Barossa Valley, former railways to Truro and across the ranges near Eudunda to Morgan on the Murray River; the ranges form part of the water supply for Adelaide, there is an extensive infrastructure of reservoirs and pipelines, on the Torrens, Little Para and Gawler River catchments. Mount Bold, South Para, Kangaroo Creek, Millbrook reservoirs are the largest.
The northern ranges confused with the southern Flinders Ranges, sometimes referred to as the "Mid-North ranges" or "central hill country", stretch from hills near Kapunda in the south to arid ranges beyond Peterborough in the northeast. The highest peak in this section is Mount Bryan. Other significant peaks include New Campbell Stein Hill, which overlooks Burra; the northern ranges include Tothill Range and the Skilly Hills. Mining, although absent today, was once a major industry in the northern ranges; the copper mine at Kapunda, just north of the Barossa, operated from 1842 to 1877 and was a major boost to the infant State's economy, but was soon overshadowed by the large workings at Burra, further north. The mine here operated from 1845 to 1877 with a few minor interruptions, was superseded by larger workings on the Yorke Peninsula; as testament to the volume of copper at Burra, the mine re-opened as an open-cut in 1971, before closing
Pentecostalism
Pentecostalism or Classical Pentecostalism is a renewal movement within Protestant Christianity that places special emphasis on a direct personal experience of God through baptism with the Holy Spirit. The term Pentecostal is derived from the Greek name for the Jewish Feast of Weeks. For Christians, this event commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the followers of Jesus Christ, as described in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Like other forms of evangelical Protestantism, Pentecostalism adheres to the inerrancy of the Bible and the necessity of accepting Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior, it is distinguished by belief in the baptism in the Holy Spirit that enables a Christian to live a Spirit-filled and empowered life. This empowerment includes the use of spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues and divine healing—two other defining characteristics of Pentecostalism; because of their commitment to biblical authority, spiritual gifts, the miraculous, Pentecostals tend to see their movement as reflecting the same kind of spiritual power and teachings that were found in the Apostolic Age of the early church.
For this reason, some Pentecostals use the term Apostolic or Full Gospel to describe their movement. Pentecostalism emerged in the early 20th century among radical adherents of the Holiness movement who were energized by revivalism and expectation for the imminent Second Coming of Christ. Believing that they were living in the end times, they expected God to spiritually renew the Christian Church thereby bringing to pass the restoration of spiritual gifts and the evangelization of the world. In 1900, Charles Parham, an American evangelist and faith healer, began teaching that speaking in tongues was the Bible evidence of Spirit baptism and along with William J. Seymour, a Wesleyan-Holiness preacher, he taught that this was the third work of grace; the three-year-long Azusa Street Revival and led by Seymour in Los Angeles, resulted in the spread of Pentecostalism throughout the United States and the rest of the world as visitors carried the Pentecostal experience back to their home churches or felt called to the mission field.
While all Pentecostal denominations trace their origins to Azusa Street, the movement has experienced a variety of divisions and controversies. An early dispute centered on challenges to the doctrine of the Trinity; as a result, the Pentecostal movement is divided between trinitarian and non-trinitarian branches, resulting in the emergence of Oneness Pentecostals. Comprising over 700 denominations and a large number of independent churches, there is no central authority governing Pentecostalism. There are over 279 million Pentecostals worldwide, the movement is growing in many parts of the world the global South. Since the 1960s, Pentecostalism has gained acceptance from other Christian traditions, Pentecostal beliefs concerning Spirit baptism and spiritual gifts have been embraced by non-Pentecostal Christians in Protestant and Catholic churches through the Charismatic Movement. Together and Charismatic Christianity numbers over 500 million adherents. While the movement attracted lower classes in the global South, there is an increasing appeal to middle classes.
Middle class congregations tend to be more adapted to society and withdraw strong spiritual practices such as divine healing. Pentecostalism is an evangelical faith, emphasizing the reliability of the Bible and the need for the transformation of an individual's life through faith in Jesus. Like other evangelicals, Pentecostals adhere to the Bible's divine inspiration and inerrancy—the belief that the Bible, in the original manuscripts in which it was written, is without error. Pentecostals emphasize the teaching of the "full gospel" or "foursquare gospel"; the term foursquare refers to the four fundamental beliefs of Pentecostalism: Jesus saves according to John 3:16. The central belief of classical Pentecostalism is that through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, sins can be forgiven and humanity reconciled with God; this is the Gospel or "good news". The fundamental requirement of Pentecostalism is; the new birth is received by the grace of God through faith in Christ as Savior. In being born again, the believer is regenerated, adopted into the family of God, the Holy Spirit's work of sanctification is initiated.
Classical Pentecostal soteriology is Arminian rather than Calvinist. The security of the believer is a doctrine held within Pentecostalism. Pentecostals believe in both a literal heaven and hell, the former for those who have accepted God's gift of salvation and the latter for those who have rejected it. For most Pentecostals there is no other requirement to receive salvation. Baptism with the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues are not required, though Pentecostal converts are encouraged to seek these experiences. A notable exception is Jesus' Name Pentecostalism, most adherents of which believe both water baptism and Spirit baptism are integral components of salvation. Pentecostals identify three distinct uses of the word "baptism" in the New Testament: Baptism into the body of Christ: This refers to salvation; every believer in Christ is made a part of the Church, through baptism. The Holy Spirit is the agent, the body of Christ is the medium. Water baptism: Symbolic of dying to the world and liv
Echidna
Echidnas, sometimes known as spiny anteaters, belong to the family Tachyglossidae in the monotreme order of egg-laying mammals. The four extant species, together with the platypus, are the only surviving members of the order Monotremata, are the only living mammals that lay eggs; the diet of some species consists of ants and termites, but they are not related to the true anteaters of the Americas. Echidnas live in New Guinea. Echidnas evolved between 50 million years ago, descending from a platypus-like monotreme; this ancestor was aquatic. The echidnas are named after Echidna, a creature from Greek mythology, half-woman, half-snake, as the animal was perceived to have qualities of both mammals and reptiles. Echidnas are medium-sized, solitary mammals spines. Superficially, they resemble the anteaters of South America and other spiny mammals such as hedgehogs and porcupines, they are black or brown in colour. There have been several reports of albino echidnas, their eyes pink and their spines white.
They have slender snouts that function as both mouth and nose. Like the platypus, they are equipped with electrosensors, but while the platypus has 40,000 electroreceptors on its bill, the long-beaked echidna has only 2,000 electroreceptors, the short-beaked echidna, which lives in a drier environment, has no more than 400 located at the tip of its snout, they have short, strong limbs with large claws, are powerful diggers. Their claws on their hind limbs are curved backwards to help aid in digging. Echidnas have tiny toothless jaws; the echidna feeds by tearing open soft logs and the like, using its long, sticky tongue, which protrudes from its snout, to collect prey. The ears are slits on the sides of their heads that are unseen, as they are blanketed by their spines; the external ear is created by a large cartilaginous funnel, deep in the muscle. At 33 °C, the echidna possess the second lowest active body temperature of all mammals, behind the platypus; the short-beaked echidna's diet consists of ants and termites, while the Zaglossus species eat worms and insect larvae.
The tongues of long-beaked echidnas have tiny spines that help them capture their prey. They have no teeth, break down their food by grinding it between the bottoms of their mouths and their tongues. Echidnas' faeces are cylindrical in shape. Echidnas do not tolerate extreme temperatures. Echidnas are found in woodlands, hiding under vegetation, roots or piles of debris, they sometimes use the burrows of animals such as wombats. Individual echidnas have mutually overlapping territories. Despite their appearance, echidnas are capable swimmers; when swimming, they expose their snout and some of their spines, are known to journey to water in order to groom and bathe themselves. Echidnas and the platypus are the only egg-laying mammals, known as monotremes; the average lifespan of an echidna in the wild is estimated around 14–16 years. When grown, a female can weigh up to 4.5 kilograms and a male can weigh up to 6 kilograms. The echidnas' sex can be inferred from their size; the reproductive organs differ, but both sexes have a single opening called a cloaca, which they use to urinate, release their faeces and to mate.
Male echidnas have non-venomous spurs on the hind feet. The neocortex makes up half compared to 80 % of a human brain. Due to their low metabolism and accompanying stress resistance, echidnas are long-lived for their size. Contrary to previous research, the echidna does enter REM sleep, but only when the ambient temperature is around 25 °C. At temperatures of 15 °C and 28 °C, REM sleep is suppressed; the female lays a single soft-shelled, leathery egg 22 days after mating, deposits it directly into her pouch. An egg is about 1.4 centimetres long. While hatching, the baby echidna opens the leather shell with a reptile-like egg tooth. Hatching takes place after 10 days of gestation; the mother digs a nursery burrow and deposits the young, returning every five days to suckle it until it is weaned at seven months. Puggles will stay within their mother's den for up to a year before leaving. Male echidnas have a four-headed penis. During mating, the heads on one side "shut down" and do not grow in size.
Each time it copulates, it alternates heads in sets of two. When not in use, the penis is retracted inside a preputial sac in the cloaca; the male echidna's penis is 7 centimetres long when erect, its shaft is covered with penile spines. These may be used to induce ovulation in the female, it is a challenge to study the echidna in its natural habitat and they show no interest in mating while in captivity. Therefore, no one has seen an echidna ejaculate. There have been previous attempts, trying to force the echidna to ejaculate through the use of electrically stimulated ejaculation in order to obtain semen samples but has on
Census in Australia
The census in Australia, or the Census of Population and Housing, collects key characteristic data on every person in Australia, the place they are staying in, on a particular night. The census is the largest statistical collection compiled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and is held every five years. Participation in the census is compulsory; the Australian Bureau of Statistics is legislated to collect and disseminate census data under the Australian Bureau of Statistics Act 1975, the Census and Statistics Act 1905. The first Australian census was held in 1911, on the night of 2 April and subsequent censuses were held in 1921, 1933, 1947, 1954 and 1961. In 1961 the five-year period was introduced. Censuses are held on the second Tuesday of August; the most recent was held on 9 August 2016 at a cost of $440 million. The census counts all people who are located within Australia and its external and internal territories, with the exception of foreign diplomats and their families, on census night.
For the first time, in 2016 Norfolk Island was included in the Australian census rather than being conducted by the Norfolk Island Government. The census examines data such as age, incomes, dwelling types and occupancy, transportation modes, languages spoken, religion; the census is collected and published against geographic areas defined by the Australian Standard Geographical Classification. The ASGC provides a set of geographic classifications for the dissemination of all ABS statistics. In 2007 the ABS published; the primary aim of mesh blocks is to provide a building block for constructing alternative and more relevant geographies. Only data on total persons and total dwellings is released at the mesh block level. Mesh blocks will form the basis of a new statistical geography, the Australian Statistical Geography Standard; the traditional concept of a Collection District is that it was the area that one census collector can cover in about a ten-day period. In the 2001 census, collectors may be allocated more than one urban collection district because of their size.
In urban areas collection districts average about 220 dwellings. In rural areas the number of dwellings per collection district reduces as population densities decrease. For the 2016 census there were 358,122'mesh blocks' and 57,523 spatial Statistical Area Level 1 regions defined throughout Australia; the Census and Statistics Act 1905 and Privacy Act 1988 guarantee that no personally-identifiable information is released from the ABS to other government organisations, or the public. However the ABS makes confidential census data available to researchers, who must make various legal commitments before being given access. In the 1970s there was public debate about the census. In 1979 the Law Reform Commission reported on the Census. One of the key elements under question was the inclusion of names, it was found. On 18 December 2015, the ABS announced that it will retain name and address data collected in the 2016 census for up to four years; this was an increase from 18 months in the 2011 censuses.
From 1971 to 1996 the ABS had a policy of destruction of the original census forms and their electronic representations, as well as field records. Prior to that it appears there was no explicit policy of destruction, but most material had been destroyed because of lack of storage facilities; however the 2001 census offered, for the first time, an option to have personal data archived by the National Archives of Australia and released to the public 99 years and in 2001 54% of Australians agreed to do so. Indigenous Australians in contact with the colonists were enumerated at many of the colonial censuses; when the Federation of Australia occurred in 1901, the new Constitution contained a provision, which said: "In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted." In 1967, a referendum was held which approved two amendments to the Australian constitution relating to indigenous Australians. The second of the two amendments deleted Section 127 from the Constitution.
It was believed at the time of the referendum, is still said, that Section 127 meant that aboriginal people were not counted in Commonwealth censuses before 1967. In fact section 127 related to calculating the population of the states and territories for the purpose of allocating seats in Parliament and per capita Commonwealth grants, its purpose was to prevent Queensland and Western Australia using their large aboriginal populations to gain extra seats or extra funds. Thus the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics interpreted Section 127 as meaning that they may enumerate "aboriginal natives" but that they must be excluded from published tabulations of population. Aboriginal people living in settled areas were counted to a greater or lesser extent in all censuses before 1967; the first Commonwealth Statistician, George Handley Knibbs, obtained a legal opinion that "persons of the half blood" or less are not "aboriginal natives" for the purposes of the Constitution. At the first Australian census in 1911 only those "aboriginal natives" living near white settlements were enumerated, the main population tables included only those of half or less aboriginal descent.
Details of "half-caste" (but not "ful
