ABS is driving change with quality statistics and data for everyone

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is excited to celebrate World Statistics Day, held every five years on 20 October.  

World Statistics Day was established by the United Nations Statistical Commission in 2010 and highlights the role statistics play in shaping our world.  

This year’s theme is ‘Driving change with quality statistics and data for everyone’, underscoring the importance of reliable, high-quality data in decision-making, effective policy development and sustainable progress.    

To mark the occasion, we're showcasing some of the everyday ways we bring this theme to life.

We are committed to building data literacy in Australia through a range of communication and data tools, such as our social media content, QuickStats, Data by Region and the DataLab.  

Elizabeth Williamson, Acting Deputy Australian Statistician, said: “We put a big priority on public communication and digestible communication about our data. Making it accessible for people is really important but also making sure that it's high quality data that can be used to inform those really big decisions in the community and by governments.” 

Since 2021, Geoscience Australia and the ABS have been partnering to integrate valuable, geospatially-enabled ABS data into the Digital Atlas of Australia.  

There are now over 100 ABS web services and thousands of data items in the Digital Atlas, providing rich insights for small areas including statistics on Australia’s population, health and disability, economy and industry, and land and environment. 

This collaboration enables a broader range of users to explore and analyse our datasets such as the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) and the Australian population grid 2022, through a geospatial lens. We also use the Digital Atlas to present combined data in user-friendly ways, so that users can drill down into local areas and overlay ABS and non-ABS data. By combining statistical and location-based insights, the platform enables governments, businesses and the public to gain deeper insights and make better-informed decisions. 

The Digital Atlas is an Australian Government initiative curating and connecting national data from trusted sources across government in a central platform. It offers a publicly accessible and a secure government environment to enhance data access, sharing and collaboration. It underwent an iterative beta release from March 2023 and went live on 28 May 2024. 

We are Australia’s national statistical agency and an official, trusted source of independent, reliable information. That’s why our data is used by the community, government, organisations and businesses to inform important decisions. 

Jacqui Vitas, General Manager of Economy and Environment, said: “Good information is critical to informing important decisions. That means that the information must be trusted, reliable and credible. For a National Statistics Organisation like the ABS, it means that it has to be produced according to the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.” 

According to the 2025 Community Trust in the ABS Statistics Survey, 99 per cent of informed users and 90 per cent of general community respondents reported trusting the ABS. 

We continue to evolve the way we collect, use, produce and publish data, focusing on technical innovation and collaboration with data partners to meet Australia’s future information needs. 

After listening to the needs of Australian farmers, we ceased the Agricultural Census and large agricultural surveys. We modernised data collection methods through partnerships and by using existing public and private data sources, such as satellite crop mapping. This shift has reduced the time farmers collectively spend answering surveys by 97 per cent, saving approximately 20,000 hours annually. 

In 2025, as part of our modernisation program, we will transition from a quarterly Consumer Price Index (CPI) to a complete monthly measure of the CPI. This move required us to bring more frequent and new prices data and to rebuild the IT systems used to compile the CPI to in a secure and efficient cloud environment. 

“It's a huge opportunity for the ABS to take better advantage of working in the cloud to produce our statistics. A monthly CPI will make sure we're in line with international best practice. It will provide more reliable and frequent information about inflation, which is of interest to all Australians. It's an essential piece of economic data for decision makers and will be a great step forward for the ABS,” Ms Willamson said. 

As Australia’s national statistical agency, we prioritise creating accessible, trustworthy and innovative data. This data is used by universities, businesses, communities, governments and more to make informed decisions that positively impact the lives of everyday Australians. 

To celebrate World Statistics Day, we are participating in a 24-hour webinar marathon which includes live sessions from each UN Regional Commission, country spotlights, panel discussions and more. Join the livestream on Monday 20 October, 00:00 – 23:59 UTC.  

Explore our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages for fun and digestible World Statistics Day content. We are also joining the #MyStatsStory social media campaign, sharing personal statistics stories from staff members on LinkedIn.