Table 1:

Table 1: Number of people by various definitions of ethnic origins, 1986,
Given ancestry	Leaders claims re total	Persons with some ancestry (Total descent)	Ethnic strength^a	Persons of unmixed ancestry	Persons using ethnic language at home^b
Greek Italian Maltese Russian^c German^d Dutch Chinese Filopeno	650,000 1,000,000 400,000 70,000 - - - -	336,000 650,000 126,000 78,300 507,500 231,200 201,200 38,700	315,000 587,000 130,000 40,500 595,000 226,900 190,000 39,600	293,000 507,200 97,000 27,800 233,300 149,700 172,500 30,100	289,000 435,000 62,700 22,700 112,300 69,400 140,000 30,200
^a ‘Ethnic Strength’ counts persons of unmixed origin as ‘one’ and persons of mixed origin according to their fractional strength. So a person with two English grandparents and one German and one Russian grandparent counts as one-half in the English total and one-quarter in the German and Russian totals. Ethnic strength is usually between Total Descent and Unmixed Descent. ^{b Census language totals relate to those aged five and over. I have increased my totals to allow for children aged 0-4, whether born overseas or in Australia of foreign-born parents. ^{c Russian includes Belo-Russian ^{d Ethnic strength exceeds Total Descent because Germans have been settled in numbers in Australia since the 1830s; many with some German origin give their ancestry as ‘Australian’.}}} e Ethnic Strength exceeds Total Descent because some children of an Australian father and Filipino mother give their ancestry as ‘Australian’.

Source: 1986 Census