Further ABS cuts to blind economy

By Leith van Onselen

It is Groundhog Day at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

The organisation has already been savaged by funding cuts and jobs losses under the prior two governments (both Labor and Liberal), thus hampering its ability to perform its functions.

Now, the ABS’ Forward Work Program 2017-18 foreshadows another 500 job cuts as well as further cuts to various surveys, including housing finance:

The ABS does not have the resources to undertake all the activities that our customers demand, and this has more than likely been the case for at least the last decade. I noted in the Forward Work Program for 2016–17, that we would be reviewing our work program, in consultation with governments and other key stakeholders in order to prioritise our product and service offerings…

To ensure the ABS has sufficient resources for these enhancements while maintaining core statistical outputs within our diminishing budget, we have had to make some choices regarding the statistical work program…

The ABS appropriation is reducing in real terms due to continuing efficiency dividends, whole-of-government savings and reduction in new policy proposals over many years.

The ABS has had an average annual appropriation of around $290 million over the past 20 years (and less in recent years) to deliver our regular annual statistical program, together with around $36 million in user funding… Over the next three years the ABS’s appropriation will fall by approximately 10 per cent. In line with this decline in funding, average staffing levels will need to decline by around 17 per cent over the next two years…

Stakeholders were advised that the ABS will need to cease, change or seek user funding for some of the lower priority statistics…

After consultation with key stakeholders about the prioritisation of the ABS statistical work program, a number of changes were proposed to ensure the ABS has sufficient resources to facilitate the new, higher value work priorities noted above. These changes were chosen to avoid compromising core economic statistics, and taking stakeholder input into account:

• cease the biennial Household Use of Information Technology statistics from the 2018–19 cycle, and the monthly Motor Vehicle Sales from the beginning of 2018;
• cease the Statistical Clearing House (SCH) from August 2017. Commonwealth agencies are no longer required to submit their business surveys to the SCH for review and approval;
• consult with relevant agencies on the cessation of the Agricultural Land and Water Ownership Survey, noting that a Senate Inquiry recommended that the Australian Taxation Office’s Foreign Ownership of Agricultural Register is used as the primary source of data on foreign investment in Australian agriculture;
• seek user funding for the continuation of the quarterly Industrial Disputes collection and the bi-annual Internet Activity Survey from 2018–19;
• seek user funding for some annual components of International Trade statistics;
• reduce or streamline outputs for Housing Finance statistics, Lending Finance statistics, and Tourism region maps from 2018–19; and
• adopt a new collection model for the General Social Survey.

Cutting funding and resourcing to the ABS is complete and utter madness. Timely and accurate data are vital to good decision making, and these cuts risk hampering the Government’s ability to formulate policy, the RBA’s ability to accurately read the economy and formulate monetary policy, as well as the public’s decision making and ability to evaluate policy. It is a retrograde move that will provide minimal cost savings at potentially great long-term cost to the Australian economy.

If anything, the Turnbull Government should boost the ABS’ funding to ensure that the RBA and policy makers are not left in the dark during what will continue to be a massive structural adjustment over the next few years as various forces collide, both domestic and global.

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