REGIONAL DATA AT YOUR FINGERTIPS


Finding data for your Local Government Area
Wyndham LGA - An example
Transition to the ASGS
Product development - Give us your suggestions
Finding the NRP on the ABS website


FINDING DATA FOR YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

Want to find out how many people live in your Local Government Area (LGA)? What is the birth rate? What is the average taxable income? How many people have access to the internet at home? All this information, and much more, can be accessed through the National Regional Profile (NRP) on the ABS website.

There are around 300 data items in the NRP available under the broad topics of Economy, Population/People, Industry and Environment/Energy.

Data for individual regions are available in a variety of formats, discoverable through an easy to use mapping interface. You can choose a region from the lists on the left of the map, drill down into the map, or type the region name into the address search box. Once you have found your region, click on 'Get Data' to open the profile in a new window.

Profiles can be viewed as web pages or downloaded in Excel one region at a time, or click on the 'Compare Regions' button on the map page to access all data for all regions in SuperTABLE and csv formats.

WYNDHAM LGA - An example

The LGA of Wyndham in Victoria is used here to showcase some of the information available in the NRP. Covering an area of 541.8 km2, Wyndham LGA is on the south west fringes of Melbourne, and partly bordered by the coastline of Port Phillip Bay.



Population/People

In the twelve months to 2009-10, Wyndham's population grew by 12,694 (8.8%) to a total of 156,573 persons. This increase was more than five times the rate of Australia’s population growth for the same period.

The most prominent age group in Wyndham was 0 - 14 years, comprising 24.1% of the region’s total population in 2009-10.

Economy

Wyndham's Average Wage and Salary income in 2008-09 was $46,318 - higher than the corresponding Victorian level ($45,246).

In 2008-09, 27.0% of Wyndham's Wage and salary earners were aged 25 years to 34 years. In occupation terms, the largest proportion (19.4%) of all Wage and salary earners were 'Clerical and Administrative workers', followed by ‘Professionals’ (15.5%), and ‘Tradespersons and Related workers’ (12.4%).

Industry

In 2009-10, the number of new private sector houses approved in Wyndham was 5,262, an increase of 1,768 (50.60%) from 2008-09.

Environment/Energy

Wyndham had an area of 3,000 ha irrigated in 2005-06, which is 7.1% of all agricultural land in the area. The total water use for farms in Wyndham in 2005-06 was 9,925 ML, or 0.4% of all water used on Victorian farms in that year.
TRANSITION TO THE ASGS

Future editions of the NRP will incorporate the new Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS). The ASGS was developed following a review of the Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) that commenced in 2006 and involved consultation with a broad range of stakeholders. The ASGS has been designed to better meet the statistical needs of users and to address some of the shortcomings of the ASGC. The March 2011 issue of this newsletter included an article 'Australian Statistical Geography Standard' containing more information about the change to ASGS.

Profiles for Local Government Areas will continue to be produced in future NRP editions (next release 2013). The table below outlines how boundaries will be affected under the ASGS structure.

Current ASGC level produced	New ASGS level produced	Differences
Australia	Australia	None
State/Territory	State/Territory	None
Capital City Statistical Division	Greater Capital City Statistical Area	Significant boundary and concept differences
Local Government Area	Local Government Area	LGA boundaries will be maintained as non-ABS structures of the ASGS
Statistical Local Area	Statistical Area Level 2	Significant boundary and concept differences

Further information regarding how Local Government Areas fit within the new structure, can be accessed from the left hand side of the page under the heading ‘ASGS Fact Sheets’ on the ABS Geography portal https://www.abs.gov.au/Geography.
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT - Give us your suggestions

The ABS is continually refining the NRP, seeking new, valuable data sets that could be added. If you know of 'untapped' local government datasets that may be available across all jurisdictions, please forward your suggestions to our data development team, for further investigation. Similarly you may have ideas on how to make the NRP interface more user friendly. Please contact us by email at regional.statistics@abs.gov.au.


FINDING THE NRP ON THE ABS WEBSITE

For more information, refer to the National Regional Profile 2006-2010 (cat. no. 1379.0.55.001), which can be accessed on the ABS home page from the left hand side of the page under the heading 'Regional Statistics'.