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Frequently Asked Questions
Where did the idea for One Million More come from?
One
Million More is the initiative of Advance.
Advance is a community of Australian professionals overseas headquartered
in New York City, with established chapters in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles,
San Francisco, Washington DC and London with several others in formation around
the globe. Advance recognises the importance of maintaining connection with
the one million Australians in our diaspora making their mark in boardrooms,
science laboratories, arts institutions, classrooms and communities worldwide.
It provides online and live services and events in major industry sectors,
enabling Australians abroad to be informed ambassadors-at-large who open doors
and opportunities for Australia and Australians across the globe.
How did Southern Cross Group become involved in One Million More?
Advance contacted the Southern Cross Group in July 2006 and asked the SCG to work with it on the One Million More initiative. Advance recognised that the SCG is the only global Australian diaspora advocacy and support organisation with an unrivalled depth of knowledge into all facets of the Australian expatriate community.
What is the Southern Cross Group?
The Southern Cross Group is an international non-profit volunteer-run and independently-funded advocacy and support organisation for the Australian diaspora. The SCG takes an inclusive approach in defining the Australian overseas community and works on behalf of everyone in that community, regardless of their age, educational background, occupation, professional status or income. Those who are not technically Australian citizens but who are former citizens or future citizens or otherwise have a very close family connection with Australia are also within the SCG's constituency. Since its formation in early 2000, the SCG has established a consistent track record of intelligent and timely submissions to Government on a host of Australian expatriate issues, taking the lead in establishing "the Australian diaspora" firmly in Australian domestic consciousness. The Group is best known for its work in reforming Australian citizenship law. It has also been active on the issue of expatriate disenfranchisement in the Australian electoral process, and was the driving force behind the establishment of a broad-based dedicated Federal Senate Committee Inquiry into Australian expatriates held in 2003-2005. The SCG is run by 100 volunteers in 30 countries. It has no formal members or membership fees. People interested in keeping abreast of the SCG's activities are invited to sign up to its occasional free e-bulletins.
How has the Southern Cross Group Contributed to the One Million More Initiative?
Since becoming involved with One Million More, the SCG has worked closely with Advance to develop and refine the survey questions to make them as inclusive and as appropriate as possible for all in the Australian diaspora.
The SCG has in addition taken the lead in global publicity efforts for One Million More, using its existing 6,000 strong database of Australian media, parliamentarians and Australian expatriates to help get the word out. It is also working with an internationally recognised public relations agency to coordinate publicity campaigns into the national media in the key countries where the bulk of Australians overseas reside, .e.g UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong, Italy and Greece.
How has Advance contributed to One Million More?
One Million More was Advance's idea and is an Advance project. Advance compiled an initial draft of the survey questionnaire before the SCG became involved. Advance has also been responsible for providing the online and technical support necessary for the project, using Survey Monkey software. Advance has also contacted many Australian expatriate groups to let them know of the survey and asked them to promote it to their members.
If your Australian expatriate group, club or organisation hasn't been contacted, don't take it personally! Advance has tried to track down all Aussie expat organisations all over the world, and the omission was by no means intentional. We hope you'll support the project too! Send us an e-mail to get involved.
What are the Questions in the One Million More Survey?
You can preview the questions in the online survey tool in this pdf document. Not all the options provided as possible answers to some of the more detailed questions are included in the pdf document, but it will give you an overview of all the questions asked.
Where did the questions in One Million More come from?
The first rough draft of the One Million More survey was a cut and paste from a number of sources, such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census 2006 questionnaire, and questions drawn from various previous surveys into Australia's expatriate community. Advance added some questions it drafted in addition, as did the SCG. And a number of questions in the original draft were culled after consultations, because it was deemed that they were not appropriate for the expatriate situation.
All of the SCG's one hundred volunteers in 30 countries were asked to provide their comments and suggestions, so that the SCG was able to provide substantial input from a varied user base to finalise the questions.
Professor Graham Hugo, director of a population research unit based at the University of Adelaide, also saw various drafts and provided his feedback.
Is this really a "Census"?
No. One Million More is actually a survey because some of the questions it contains go beyond the mere "fact finding" of a pure census and it is not endorsed by nor carried out by government. Further, we can never hope to truly "count" all overseas Australians which is the true purpose of a census. Advance, which initiated the project and which has overall responsibility for the project, took the decision to use the term "Census".
How Many People Need to Complete to Survey before the Results will be Representative of the Diaspora as a Whole, or Statistically Significant?
We've asked Professor Graeme Hugo these questions. This is what he said:
"In fact the survey is not a sample. This term can only be used when the respondents have been selected randomly. Since this is a self selected group it can be seen as being statistically representative of the total expatriate population. As a result there is no concept of statistical significance which can be applied. The best bet is to get as many responses as possible representing as many countries and type of expatriates as possible. The fact that it isn't a random sample doesn't mean you can't derive important generalisations from the survey. It's just that you can't say it is statistically representative of the total expatriate population."
We're trying very hard to reach overseas Australians in less obvious places because we expect that survey participation will be heavily dominated by Australians living in the UK and the UK, although in reality only around half of all expat Aussies live in those two countries.
What will be done with the data?
The data will be made available to Professor Hugo who will use it to continue
his research into the Australian diaspora. Advance will draw upon the survey
results to assist it with its work, as will the SCG.
When will the results be published?
One Million More will be online until 30 September 2006. Thereafter, the data will be analysed in due course. As results and findings become available, they will be published on the websites of the Southern Cross Group and Advance and the One Million More website. We will also alert people to the release of the findings by issuing media releases.
To ensure you receive information on survey results, please sign up for SCG's mailing list.
How is my privacy going to be protected?
Participation in the survey is on an entirely anonymous basis. You are not required to supply your name, e-mail address, snail mail address or any other contact details in order to complete the survey.
For some questions, for example, those inquiring about income and assets, some people may prefer not to provide an answer. For those questions, you can click on the option which says "I would prefer not to provide an answer to this question".
The survey is supported using Survey Monkey software, and we are confident that this is a secure technology. Details of the privacy policy underlying the survey tool are available here.
Raw survey data will be kept entirely confidential. Only Professor Graeme Hugo, Advance and the Southern Cross Group will have initial access to it. It may in due course be made available to other academics for legitimate study. It will not be sold for profit to any commercial organisation.
I've noticed that once one person has done One Million More from my computer, it won't let a second person do the survey on the same computer. Why is that? And if you can identify my computer, am I really anonymous?
There is a setting on the survey tool which allows the organisers to decide whether they want to allow people to submit multiple responses or not. We've set it to "no", to prevent multiple submissions from the same person. We realise however, that it's possible that two individuals, wanting to complete the survey as individuals and not as a family unit, might want to use the same computer to do One Million More.
The survey tool does not collect/store personal information such as email addresses to achieve this. Rather, the survey places a cookie on the hard drive of the responding machine that, when present, allows people to return to where they left off from the survey if they stopped mid-way, otherwise takes them to the last screen if the survey has been completed.
The simple way around this is to clear all the cookies on the local machine (command easily accessible from Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape Navigator, and most other browsers). But make sure you don't delete unrelated cookies that you might need for other applications! Otherwise, the user can just delete the cookie from surveymonkey.com.
The only "personal" information collected by the survey tool is
the user's IP address, which isn't particularly "personally" identifiable.
Is this survey in any way connected with the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Australia's official 2006 Census?
No. One Million More is an entirely independent, non-governmental initiative. It will start on the day of the Australian Census 2006, but this is not an Australian government initiative.
Is the Australian Government going to have access to my Census response?
No. Only the Southern Cross Group, Advance and Professor Hugo will have access to the raw data. Other academics may be provided with the data for legitimate study purposes, but the raw data will never be given to any agency or department of government. Your response will remain totally confidential and anonymous.
I live overseas, but I'm not actually an Australian citizen. Do you want me to participate in One Million More?
Yes, most definitely! Australia's diaspora is not just about Australian citizens living overseas. We understand that there are many people who lost or renounced their Australian citizenship living abroad today who consider themselves "Australian". We also know that there are many people with very close Australian family heritage and ties who "feel" Australian. All these people are part of Australia's diverse diaspora and we urge every single one of them to participate in One Million More.
Why is it important for me to complete the entire survey?
You might find One Million More a bit long. It takes about 15 minutes to complete. But every single question in the survey is in there for a reason. We need to be able to ensure that we have covered the broad range of experiences that Australian expats have. Incomplete survey responses will detract from the overall quality of the data that results.
We are endeavouring to capture a complete and detailed picture of the Australian diaspora today. So we need a complete and detailed picture of you, because you're an integral part of the diaspora.
You'll notice that the survey is presented in "pages". Each time you complete a page and move to the next page, the completed page is captured, so even if you don't finish the survey, what you have done will still be counted.
What happens if I make a mistake as I'm doing the survey? Can I go back one or more pages to fix my mistake or change my answer to a particular question?
Yes. The survey was originally designed so that you couldn't go backwards once the previous page has been submitted, because we were concerned that conflicting data could be sent two, three or more times from the same respondent to the host server, and that it would play havoc with the results.
However, a number of people contacted us in the first few days and said that they had realised that they'd picked the wrong option from a pull-down menu or made other mistakes and that they would have preferred to have been able to go backwards in the survey to correct their mistakes. So we have now adjusted it so that everyone can now move forwards and backwards throughout the survey.
Regardless of this, the survey still records data each time you leave a page, so "partial" data from those who don't complete the entire survey will nevertheless be collected.
I was born before 1940 and my year of birth wasn't listed in the drop down list of years in the survey. What should I do? Do you still want me to complete the survey?
Yes! Those born before 1940 should click on the drop down option for "before 1940", which looks like this: "< 1940". The drop down list of years was so long that we were just trying to make it less unwieldy. But we agree that the "less than" symbol isn't always immediately obvious at first glance...
Is there a place in the survey for me to freely communicate my thoughts, feelings and experiences as an overseas Australian?
Yes. At the end of the survey, you have an opportunity to make your own freestyle contribution, outside the constraints of a traditional survey question which limits responses to multiple choice answers. We look forward to reading your thoughts.
How can I help make One Million More a success?
If you're part of Australia's diaspora, then please complete the survey, and help us by alerting all your Australian friends and relatives resident overseas to the project.
If you're in Australia, then put on your thinking cap and think who you might know in the Australian overseas community, by way of relatives, former colleagues and friends. Send them an e-mail and tell them about One Million More.
We have a colourful One Million More poster that can be put on school, workplace and community noticeboards downloadable here. We also have a smaller One Million More flyer that can be usefully distributed at functions etc involving Aussie expats near you. Each A4-size page prints out three flyers.
How long will it take to complete One Million More?
We estimate that it will take about 15 minutes to complete One Million More. We ask you to take the time to answer carefully and accurately. One Million More will remain open online until 30 September 2006. So there's no rush to do it right now if you're pressed for time. Allow yourself the time to do it at your leisure sometime before 30 September 2006. But don't forget about it! If you're overseas, you're an integral part of Australia's one-million strong diaspora.
