Last year, we noted a shift in the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) reporting when it suddenly began shilling for a ‘Big Australia’ of 40 million people mid-century:
As I noted at the time, the ABS conveniently left out that Australia is mostly desert with scarce water supplies, making the comparison asinine:
Yesterday, The Guardian reported that the ABS dropped reference to worsening wealth inequality from its media release in order to craft a “good media story”:
References to wealth inequality reaching its peak in 2017-18 were removed from an Australian Bureau of Statistics press release to help craft a “good media story”, according to internal documents.
The emails and drafts show the ABS issued a separate income inequality media release in July to create a narrative of “stable” inequality despite wealth inequality on the rise, with one email noting the ABS did not want to “draw attention” to a bad result for the poorest households.
A spokesman for the ABS has denied any interference by the Morrison government or the suggestion it sought to misrepresent data, which was all strictly factual, arguing media releases “aim to showcase key findings” with journalists free to draw their own conclusions from other data…
An earlier draft, produced under freedom of information, states that wealth inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient, “is at its peak now (0.621) since it was first comprehensively measured in 2003-04 (0.573)”, a phrase later deleted after a direction to “focus on income over wealth”…
The shadow assistant minister for treasury, Andrew Leigh, accused the ABS of “putting a big pair of rose tinted glasses on their analysis of inequality… Leigh suggested the ABS was indirectly responding to political pressure…
You can read the nitty-gritty on how the ABS juked the stats here.
Yet another example of a once impartial government institution being captured by its political masters.
