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Australia’s digital divide is even greater for Indigenous Australians
Author Leah Hawkins
Date 19 October 2022
Dr Daniel Featherstone, Lead Investigator for the Mapping the Digital Gap Research Project, was interviewed on ABC News Sunday to discuss the growing digital divide in Australia’s remote and regional communities, alongside Katrina Cherel from Muludja community and Mimbi tour guide Ronnie Jimbidie, from northern Western Australia.
“11% of the [Australian] population remains classified as highly excluded from the digital world – that’s almost 3 million people. Regional residents still lag behind those in capital cities,” said ABC regional social affairs reporter Erin Parke.
“The digital divide is even greater when it comes to Indigenous Australians, and the situation could be even worse than the data shows, because until now, people in remote Aboriginal communities were never even surveyed.”
“The digital divide is even greater when it comes to Indigenous Australians.”
The interview highlighted the lack of available and affordable digital services in regional and remote First Nations communities—communities who need these services the most are increasingly left behind.
It speaks of communities constantly frustrated by the lack of mobile reception access or infrastructure; of having to step out to the verandah to pay a bill and being unable to register online for Covid-19 support during the height of the pandemic.
Distinguished Professor Julian Thomas, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S), was also interviewed on ABC Radio’s Life Matters for Get Online Week.
He spoke of the findings from the Australian Digital Inclusion Index (ADII) since its launch in 2016; that while Australia is becoming a more digitally connected and capable country, that capability is distributed extremely unevenly based on factors such as address, income, employment, and age.
“If we think about what is the cost of not being connected… going back 20 years, if you didn’t have an email address it may or may not have made much difference to your life. But we’re now in a situation… where all kinds of services – government services, business, community services – are more and more provided online,” said Prof Thomas.
“The costs of connection are increasingly high.”
The stories speak to a growing public awareness of the challenges and complexities caused by the widening digital divide—complexities that the Mapping the Digital Gap project seeks to capture over the next few years.
Read Dr Daniel Featherstone’s interview on ABC News.
Listen to Distinguished Professor Julian Thomas’ interview on the ABC’s RN Matters podcast (transcript)
