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When NSRI was first developed, the ABS undertook an extensive process to determine what areas of interest to include. Broadly, the areas of interest presented in NSRI were chosen in four steps:

• We identified key domains or areas of interest based on their policy relevance
• We reviewed relevant frameworks to determine the key aspects within each domain
• We reviewed the field of indicators available from sources such as Measures of Australia's Progress, Australian Social Trends, Commonwealth and State performance reporting, selected State planning documents and other sources
• We chose indicators based on their common usage, their ability to communicate, and their statistical integrity

It was decided that the publication should focus on outcomes, but that we would include some output and service data where this would better inform the users. The indicators provide a time series perspective but detailed tables are available to expand the data for improved relevance. Therefore data are provided in a range of disaggregations such as State and local government area, age and sex, and industry for example, as is appropriate to the subject.

The data content is regularly reviewed by a process of discussing contemporary issues, data availability, perceived gaps, user and peer feedback. Where possible we try to maintain a timeseries on key indicators.