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09/03/2007: Time Series Table 38 Unit Labour Costs, has been re-issued. This has provided consistent start dates for the historical time series.

DECEMBER KEY FIGURES

		% change Sep qtr 06 to Dec qtr 06	% change Dec qtr 05 to Dec qtr 06
GDP (Chain volume measure)
	Trend	0.6	2.4
	Seasonally adjusted	1.0	2.8
Final consumption expenditure (Chain volume measure)
	Trend	0.8	3.5
	Seasonally adjusted	0.8	3.5
Gross fixed capital formation (Chain volume measure)
	Trend	0.8	3.6
	Seasonally adjusted	2.5	4.2
GDP chain price index
	Original	0.7	4.3
Terms of trade
	Seasonally adjusted	1.7	6.5
Real net national disposable income
	Trend	0.7	3.1
	Seasonally adjusted	1.2	3.8

GDP growth rates, Volume measures, quarterly change

Contributions to GDP growth, Expenditure: Seasonally adjusted

DECEMBER KEY POINTS


VOLUME GDP

• In trend terms, GDP increased by 0.6% in the December quarter and Non-farm GDP increased by 0.9%. Real net national disposable income grew by 0.7%.
• In seasonally adjusted terms, GDP increased by 1.0%, the highest growth since June quarter 2005. Non-farm GDP increased by 1.4%. The terms of trade increased by 1.7% resulting in a 1.4% increase in Real gross domestic income.

• In seasonally adjusted terms, the main contributors to the increase in expenditure on GDP were Household final consumption expenditure (0.7 percentage points) and Changes in private non-farm inventories (0.6 percentage points). The largest negative contribution came from Imports of goods and services (-1.4 percentage points).

• In seasonally adjusted terms, Construction (0.3 percentage points), Mining, Manufacturing and Property and business services (each 0.2 percentage points) were the largest contributors to GDP growth. Agriculture, forestry and fishing detracted 0.3 percentage points from GDP growth.

A description of recent releases related to the National Accounts program is presented in 'Recent releases'.

REVISIONS IN THIS ISSUE

Revisions have been made to a number of aggregates. The net effect of these revisions has not resulted in any change to the September quarter 2006 estimate of seasonally adjusted growth in Gross domestic product (GDP) (in volume terms). The revisions reflect normal quarterly revisions due to incorporation of more up-to-date source data.

CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

The method of estimating seasonally adjusted and trend estimates of GDP and its component series has changed to concurrent seasonal adjustment. For an explanation of the change see the September quarter 2006 release of this publication.

A change made to the ABS Homepage has resulted in the 'National Accounts' link no longer directly opening the Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product (cat. no. 5206.0) publication. Rather the 'National Accounts' link will open a page containing a list of a wider range of National Accounts publications including 5206.0.

The Excel spreadsheet '38. Unit labour costs' has been updated to include percentage change data for these series.

CHANGES NEXT ISSUE

On 26 February the ABS released an Information Paper that outlined the future treatment of Telstra in ABS statistics, following the completion of the Telstra 3 share offer late last year. The paper outlines some of the impacts of the privatisation on ABS statistics and provides details as to the date of effect of the privatisation for the purposes of ABS statistical outputs. These changes will be reflected in the next issue of Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product (cat. no. 5206.0).

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Terry Rawnsley on Canberra (02) 6252 6711, email national.accounts@ abs.gov.au.