1304.5 - Stats Talk WA, Jun 2009  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 31/07/2009   
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Statistical News
Developments In ABS Statistics

What are our farmers doing?
Australian farmers are custodians of over half of our nation’s land mass.

What are their land management practices? How many use zero-till? To what extent do they monitor ground cover on grazing land? How much fertiliser, lime and dolomite are used?

Find the answers in Land Management and Farming in Australia, 2007-08 (cat. no. 4627.0), a new report released by the ABS.

Labour Force Survey
This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for! As a result of the recent Federal Budget announcements, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will be able to restore the sample size of its monthly Labour Force, Australia survey (cat. no. 6202.0) by January 2010.

The ABS will receive a much needed $15 million in Government appropriation for the 2009-10 financial year, allowing it to reinstate, continue or enhance several programs including labour force, the retail survey and job vacancies survey.
The Australian Statistician, Mr Brian Pink, welcomed the Government’s additional funding for the ABS. “In the current economic climate, the value of good statistics for decision making cannot be underestimated...” Mr Pink said.

Full details of changes to the ABS work program can be found on the homepage of the ABS website (www.abs.gov.au).

Indigenous Life Expectancy
As foreshadowed in the discussion paper Assessment of Methods for Developing Life Tables for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, 2006 (cat. no. 3302.0.55.002) released in November 2008, the ABS has introduced a new method to produce the 2005-2007 Indigenous life tables.

While the underlying method of construction of the life tables remains the same, the method for accounting for under-identification of Indigenous deaths has changed.

Life expectancy at birth of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) Australians was 67.2 years for men (WA 65.0) and 72.9 years for women (WA 70.4) for 2005–2007, according to experimental figures released by the ABS.

The figures showed that the life expectancy of Indigenous men in Australia is 11.5 years lower than for non-Indigenous men (WA 14.0 years lower), while life expectancy of Indigenous women in Australia is 9.7 years lower than for non-Indigenous women (WA 12.5 years lower).

The First Issue!
Family and Community Connections, May 2009 (cat. no. 4918.0) was released 8 May 2009. This release is designed to highlight developments in family and community related statistics and provide links to recent data releases relevant to the field. This initial edition celebrates National Families Week and National Volunteer Week by highlighting selected statistics to illustrate the themes of each of these weeks.

Growing pains
WA has experienced high levels of population growth in several regions over the past 12 months, according to the ABS publication Regional Population Growth, Australia, 2007-08 (cat. no. 3218.0).

The City of Perth was Australia’s fastest growing local government area. It increased 10.8% in that 12 month period. Rapid growth was also recorded along the Western Australian coast in Mandurah (5.1%) and Busselton (4.6%).

The City of Wanneroo increased by 8,552 people, the largest increase in absolute numbers.

Three quarters of WA’s population growth occurred in the Perth Statistical Division.