Dino Gadaleta, right, of the Italian community, and Teresita Chivell, presenter of Radio Filipino, represent a battle of the cultures in which the number of Philippines-born residents are likely to overtake the Italians by next Census.
Filipino numbers are growing, but Australians, the English and Italians are still the biggest enthnic groups in our community.
The Census 2011 information has been released and showed our population grew from 13,206 people in 2006, when the last Census was done, to 13,825 people – or 619 more – in the city of Port Pirie.
The female population remains slightly greater than the male, representing 51.2 percent of our residents.
Not much changed from last Census when 51.8 percent of the population were female.
Port Pirie also showed a dominance of Australian-born people with them representing 87.8 percent the population. The most common ancestry here was also Australian with 35.2 percent.
But the Philippines and Italy proved to still have some influence in our community, where Italy is represented by 0.9 per cent of the population and Philippines by 0.4 per cent.
As for ancestors, the English come in second with 2.5 percent, followed by Italians with 0.9 percent and then Filipinos with 0.4 percent.
For the presenter of Radio Filipino, Teresita Chivell, the data came as a surprise.
“When you look back five years ago, there weren’t many Filipinos here,” she said.
Cr Dino Gadaleta, president of the Italian community, and a migration agent, said the Filipino numbers were likely to overtake the Italians soon.
“Filipino skilled workers are in big demand, especially for their skills in steel fabrication,” he said.
“What happened was that after five years in a working visa, they can apply for residency and bring their families. That is what has been happening.
“I expect the number of Filipinos to keep growing and the day will come when they will overcome the Italians.”
Census also showed the median age of people in Port Pirie is 40 years old which might be the reason why only 27 percent of people were attending an educational institution. Of these, 35 percent were in primary school, 24 percent in secondary school and about nine percent in a tertiary or technical institution.
Other data showed that of the families in Port Pirie, 37 percent were couples with children, 42 percent were couples without children and 20 percent were one-parent families.
More data from the Census 2011 will be released in October.
