Australian Now: A statistical profile on www.abs.gov.au

26 February 1999

Embargoed: 11:30 AM (AEST)

25/1999

The Australian Bureau of Statistics today joined the official activities of "Online Australia 1999" with the launch of a comprehensive information package about the nation on the ABS Internet site.

Australia Now - A Statistical Profile presents detailed statistics about Australia's economy and social conditions. It also serves as a directory to other ABS statistics and contains descriptive information about Australia's government, international relations, defence, geography and climate.

The package draws on many information sources within the ABS and will be updated regularly. The content will be of widespread and ongoing interest to many Australians. Its presence on the Internet is part of the dynamic and advanced community information delivery policy of the ABS.

The ABS website itself is one of the most popular government Internet sites. It presents a wide range and variety of authoritative statistical information about Australia and is an important point of access by the community to official statistics. It is supplemented by ABS bookshops in capital cities, telephone inquiry services and ABS publications and CD-ROM products held by public libraries throughout Australia.

Australia Now - A Statistical Profile is an official Special Project of Online Australia 1999 - a major Commonwealth initiative to focus national attention on the information economy.

The initial Online Australia 1999 program was officially launched last week by the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Richard Alston, and is available at http://www.onlineaustralia.net.au