Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

OTHER NEWS


Australian Community Indicators Network (New - Apr 2013)
2011 Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) released (New - Mar 2013)
Time series estimates of personal income for small areas (New - Mar 2013)
Victorian Land Account released (Updated - Mar 2013)
ABS.Stat launched
Experimental estimates of employment
Fly-in fly-out parliamentary inquiry (Updated - Mar 2013)


AUSTRALIAN COMMUNITY INDICATORS NETWORK

In partnership with the Australian Community Indicators Network (ACIN) the ABS has been involved in preparations for the next national video seminar scheduled for 10th May 2013. This seminar titled, 'Community Indicators in Australia - Making Progress', will include a presentation on the 2010 update of South Australia's Strategic Plan. A presentation will also be provided about the development of indicators of community wellbeing to support and validate local government performance reporting. More information about the network can be found on the ACIN website. Recordings of previous ACIN seminars held by the network can be accessed from the National Statistical Service website.


2011 SOCIO-ECONOMIC INDEXES FOR AREAS (SEIFA) RELEASED

The recent third release of 2011 Census data included the release of the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), which ranks areas in Australia according to relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage.

SEIFA 2011 contains the same set of four indexes as released for SEIFA 2006:

• The Index of Relative Socio-Economic Disadvantage (IRSD)
• The Index of Relative Socio-Economic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD)
• The Index of Education and Occupation (IEO)
• The Index of Economic Resources (IER).

Each index is a summary of a different subset of the 2011 Census variables and focuses on a different aspect of socio-economic advantage and disadvantage.

SEIFA 2011 can be used for a wide range of purposes including:

• determining areas that require funding and services
• identifying new business opportunities
• research into the relationship between socio-economic disadvantage and various health and educational outcomes

SEIFA 2011 contains new easy-to-use features and data visualisation tools, including the ability to display data using Google Earth®, which makes interpreting Census data even easier. You can view and download all information free of charge from the Census/SEIFA page of the ABS website.
TIME SERIES ESTIMATES OF PERSONAL INCOME FOR SMALL AREAS

Data for 2009-10 was released on 28 November 2012, and time series data for 2005-06 to 2009-10 was released on 18 February 2013. The estimates have been compiled using aggregated individual income tax data from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). Data are provided on the number of individuals and the amount of income received from wage and salary, own unincorporated business, investment, superannuation and annuities, and other income (excluding government pensions and allowances).

The time series data for local government areas, Statistical Area Levels 2, 3 and 4 have been released in Estimates of Personal Income for Small Areas, Time Series, 2009-10 (cat. no. 6524.09.55.002).


VICTORIAN LAND ACCOUNT RELEASED

The Land Account is part of a set of integrated environmental-economic accounts currently being developed by the ABS. Land accounting measures the change in the land and its attributes resulting from the impact of human and natural activity. The value of a set of Land Accounts is the ability to measure these attributes by examining stocks at different points in time to support policy around sustainable development and economic management.

The Land Account: Victoria, Experimental Estimates, 2012 (cat. no. 4609.0.55.002), is the second Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Land Account (see Land Account: Great Barrier Reef Region, Experimental Estimates, 2011 (cat. no. 4609.0.55.001)). The Land Account: Victoria, Experimental Estimates, 2012, provides statistics on land to inform decision-making, research and discussion about Victoria. The data is presented in a series of statistical tables for the State of Victoria and associated Natural Resource Management (NRM) regions, as well as in various spatial formats for the 13,335 Statistical Area Level 1 (SA1) areas in Victoria.

There were no new statistical collections conducted to provide data for this release. It was compiled from existing data sources from Commonwealth and State Government Agencies.

Additional tables and maps detailing changes in native vegetation cover in Victoria from 1750 to 2006 for Natural Resource Management (NRM), Statistical Area Level 4 (SA4) and Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) regions were released on 26 March 2013. The revision also includes 5 additional maps (Maps 7-11) detailing percentage of native vegetation remaining by NRM, SA4 and IBRA regions.

For more information contact Mark Lound on (02) 6252 6325 or email mark.lound@abs.gov.au.
ABS.STAT LAUNCHED

On 14 December the ABS launched the beta version of the ABS.Stat product on the ABS website and we are seeking your feedback to improve this free online tool. ABS.Stat Beta presents datasets in a searchable, flexible and dynamic way, allowing users to create and export custom tables.

Users are presented with two options:

• a web browser interface where you can view, query and download data; and
• a web services interface described in a machine-processable format using the Statistical Data and Metadata Standard (SDMX) allowing machine-to-machine mechanisms for accessing and sharing ABS data.

Please note that this product is still in the beta stage and as such the datasets available are limited. Selected datasets are loaded as soon as possible after their 11:30am release on the ABS website, however data in ABS.Stat Beta may not necessarily be the most up to date. You are advised to check the ABS website for the latest data. The ABS.Stat release calendar and current dataset status table advise of the status of datasets.

A full list of identified issues is available on the ABS.Stat ABS product page via 'ABS.Stat List of Issues'.

We encourage you to use and trial this resource, the future of ABS data availability. Online tutorials have been developed to assist you in retrieving and using the product.

Please email any feedback to abs.stat@abs.gov.au.


EXPERIMENTAL ESTIMATES OF EMPLOYMENT

The recent release of Experimental Estimates of Employees by Industry and Workplace Location, Victoria, 2005-06 to 2010-11 (cat. no. 8176.2.55.001) represents an investigation by the ABS into the potential for administrative datasets to inform the production of spatially enabled economic statistics at the local level. The experimental estimates in this release were produced predominantly using business data sourced from WorkSafe Victoria. As such, the scope of the estimates are based on the businesses with locations in Victoria that are registered with WorkSafe for the reference periods of 2005-06 to 2010-11. These include:

• workplaces that employ workers and have an annual employer remuneration expense greater than $7,500, or those which employ trainees or apprentices, registered with WorkSafe Victoria,
• employers approved by WorkSafe Victoria to manage their own worker's compensation (Self-Insurers).

The Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development (DPCD) commissioned the Australian Bureau of Statistics, under the auspices of a Victorian Statistical Priority, to provide the statistical framework necessary to produce workforce location experimental estimates of the number of employed persons by Victorian local government area of workplace, by industry (ANZSIC 2006) for the financial years 2005-06 to 2010-11.

For more information contact James Darragh on (03) 9615 7049 or email james.darragh@abs.gov.au.
FLY-IN FLY-OUT PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY

The recent "House Standing Committee on Regional Australia: Inquiry into the use of ‘fly-in, fly-out’ (FIFO) workforce practices in regional Australia" has raised awareness and interest in using regional statistics to better understand the circumstances of the regional communities that host FIFO workers and other areas which are home to those FIFO workers. The Committee's terms of reference include the current and future extent of FIFO work across Australia, the costs and benefits of FIFO work to companies and individuals, the effect of FIFO work practices on "host" and "home" communities, and government initiatives in relation to FIFO work.

Many of the issues faced by regional communities in relation to FIFO are generic regional issues such as planning for population change; economic development, and community wellbeing. Therefore, the FIFO debate reflects common regional policy and planning issues and data needs.

The Inquiry raised a number of interesting issues in terms of the way ABS data can be used to better inform this debate. The ABS prepared two public submissions to the Inquiry, the first explaining our current data and its uses, and the second explaining what could be done to meet some of the data gaps. These submissions can be found on the Australian Parliament House (APH) website under submission 223 and 223.1.

The Inquiry recently released it's findings in the report "Cancer of the bush or salvations for our cities" which can be found on the House Standing Committee on Regional Australia page of the APH website. The Inquiry findings highlighted a range of unmet information needs, with Recommendation 1 specifically seeking an ABS response in relation to improvements to regional service population data.