The official number of indigenous people living on the Border has been questioned by Indi MP Cathy McGowan.
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Making her “closing the gap” speech in Parliament this week, Ms McGowan passed on the views held by many in the Aboriginal community that the Australian Bureau of Statistics “severely underestimates” the number living in Albury-Wodonga,
Rather than the officially reported 3000 people, anecdotal evidence points to a number of about 4000.
“The significance of this is the allocation of funds is based on population data, so our numbers are way short of what the reality is,” Ms McGowan said.
She told The Border Mail there was "enormous disappointment” the government had not made progress needed to close the gap between Aboriginal communities and the rest of the population.
But she said organisations around Indi were making real headway in their own networks.