by Chris Becker
It should be a no-brainer on both sides of politics that objective facts and statistics are required to make policy decisions. But the Australian Bureau of Statistics remains under significant funding pressure to provide such data.
More from The Age:
Pressed by the Labor Party about the next census in 2021, following major technical troubles with the 2016 national headcount, the ABS has categorically rejected any suggestions that it will outsource its pinnacle data collection event. But it has confirmed ongoing budget pressures, including a $36 million shortfall in the last financial year, mean it will continue to review its statistical collections.
Visits to its website jumped 11 per cent to almost 18 million in 2017-18 while downloads of information increased by 12 per cent.
That demand has come despite a string of collections being ditched or sharply reduced over recent years.
The bureau noted that “over the past decade the need for prioritisation has become sharper as the ABS appropriation has reduced in real terms”.
Despite the reduced services, in the 2017-18 financial year, the ABS reported a $36 million operating loss. That followed a $17.5 million shortfall the previous year and a $36.6 million accounting loss in 2015-16.
Compounding this miniscule amount of funding is a real gutting of staff due to round after round of cuts by the Coalition with the number of graduates on staff reduced from 130 to barely 30, with the smallest staff for a decade of just over 2000.
It’s not rocket surgery to think that as the Australian economy goes through its toughest time in nearly three decades that its key policy decision data collection service remains sharp as a tack. Australia still does not have a monthly CPI survey and the rate the number of statistical publications are being cut, before too long all we’ll know about the economy will be as reliable as playing two-up.
This is like defunding the BOM during a storm season or CSIRO as climate change accelerates. Oh wait….