Leichhardt – Australia 2025

According to The Poll Bludger, this seat contains:

* 100% of Barron River
* 100% of Cairns
* 70% of Cook
* 60% of Mulgrave

People sometimes ask me “what is the blackest town in Australia?”. Well, I’ve found an island here that would be a contender for the least white place in Australia. I knew about this island before but I never knew the exact demographics of it.

Saibai Island is an island in the Torres Strait regarded as the second-most northern inhabited settlement in Australia (only Boigu Island is more but it is surprisingly whiter than Saibai Island). Having had a look in Google Maps Street View you can actually see the village of Sigadabaru in PNG in the distance from the island. It is also the closest part of Australia to PNG and the airport there does charter flights to Daru in PNG.

Cultural diversity:
* Indigenous status: 85.6% Indigenous, 10.3% non-Indigenous
* Ancestry: 74.7% Torres Strait Islander, 15.0% Papua New Guinean, 3.5% Aboriginal, 2.1% English
* Country of birth: 81.2% Australia, 10.9% Papua New Guinea
* Country of birth of father: 72.4% Australia, 24.1% Papua New Guinea
* Country of birth of mother: 75.0% Australia, 18.2% Papua New Guinea
* Religion: 84.2% Christianity (40.0% Anglican, 11.5% none, 7.1% Catholic, 6.8% “Christian” (nfd))
* Language spoken at home: 96.1% languages other than English, 6.5% English only (43.8% Torres Strait Creole (Yumplatok), 35.3% Kala Lagaw Ya, 6.5% English, 4.4% “Australian Indigenous languages” (nfd), 4.1% “Creole” (nfd), 1.8% “Aboriginal English” (so described))

Some other general stats about the island:
* Population: 340 (69 families)
* Weekly household income: $922 ($0 mortgage repayments)
* Weekly rent: $115
* Gender: 53.7% male, 46.3% female
* Median age: 25
* Marriage: 66.0% never married, 27.3% married, 2.4% separated, 2.4% widowed, 0.0% divorced (59.2% not married, 25.1% registered marriage, 15.6% de facto marriage)
* Work: 63.2% not in the labour force, 27.8% in the labour force (44.8% full-time, 43.1% unemployed, 19.0% part-time, 5.2% away from work)
* Long-term health conditions: 66.8% none, 9.7% diabetes, 4.1% asthma, 1.8% cancer, 0.9% mental health, 2.6% other
* Motor vehicles: 55.6% none, 30.6% one, 5.6% two, 4.2% three or more

With 96.1% of the population speaking a language other than English at home I think Saibai Island has the lowest percentage of native English speakers in Australia as well as being probably the most Papuan place in Australia and only 2.1% of the population has English ancestry. The only countries people are born in there are Australia and PNG, so literally nobody from any other continent has migrated there, which is strange since usually there’s at least one family from Asia or Europe that migrates to a remote area.