Although most national surveys to date have not included enough Indigenous people to allow for separate estimates, there have been some important exceptions.

The first National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey was conducted in 1994, as part of the government’s response to a recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which recognised the paucity of data about the experiences of Indigenous Australians. The resulting survey included almost 16,000 Indigenous people from all over Australia, and included questions in the areas of family and culture, health, housing, education and training, employment and income, and law and justice.

The 1995 National Health Survey included an over-sampling of the Indigenous population, which resulted in about 2,000 Indigenous participants. Due to concerns about the quality of data in remote areas, only data for non-remote areas have been published.

The Community Housing and Infrastructure Needs Survey, conducted in 1999, collected information on the presence and condition of housing and community infrastructure in all discrete Indigenous communities and from all Indigenous housing organisations. Because of the nature of the sampling frame, urban areas are not well represented in this collection.

No time series data yet exist, because none of the surveys has been repeated to date. However, future on-going collections are planned by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, including a regular Indigenous general social survey and regular enhanced Indigenous samples within the National Health Survey.