Counting on connectivity: measuring digital inclusion for First Nations Australians

Building the evidence for keeping families, communities, languages, and cultures connected in an increasingly online world

Join us online as the Hon. Anika Wells MP, Minister for Communications and Minister for Sport, launches our report and interactive dashboard showcasing the first in-depth national comparative figures on First Nations digital inclusion.

The research is guided by First Nations governance and partnerships and draws on the voices of nearly 3,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants across the country. The findings build a strong evidence base for community-led solutions and digital self-determination, supporting First Nations empowerment and control over how communication technologies, media, and information are accessed, used, and shared. 

First Nations organisations, government, industry partners, and the public are invited to register to:

• Discover the scale and nature of the digital gap between First Nations Australians and non-First Nations Australians. 

• Hear how digital participation and inclusion varies across the country, shaped by place, income, age, disability, education, housing, and languages spoken at home.

• Explore the new interactive data dashboard, enabling First Nations people, communities, and organisations to interpret and use the data in ways that reflect their own needs.

• Learn from First Nations partners, the research team, and policymakers about how this evidence can guide practical community-led solutions and national policy and programs to help close the digital gap and support digital innovation. 

This milestone marks a critical step towards being able to measure progress of Outcome 17 of the Closing the Gap Framework. 

About this research

The research project Measuring Digital Inclusion for First Nations Australians is hosted by the RMIT and Swinburne nodes of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) and funded by the Australian Government. The project measures digital inclusion for First Nations people nationally and tracks changes in the scale and nature of the digital gap relative to non-First Nations Australians.

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