QUALITY DECLARATION - SUMMARY
INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT
For information on the institutional environment of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), including the legislative obligations of the ABS, financing and governance arrangements, and mechanisms for scrutiny of ABS operations, please see ABS Institutional Environment.
RELEVANCE
Data on the total supply of alcohol available for consumption is one indicator of the overall trends in alcohol consumption across the population.
Combined administrative data from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and the Australian Customs Service (ACS), and direct collection of data from wine making enterprises provide information on the quantity of beer, wine and spirits available for consumption. It also contains estimates of pure alcohol (in litres of alcohol) available for consumption of beer, wine and spirits. Estimates of the apparent consumption of beer and wine per person aged 15 years and over, in addition to the apparent consumption of alcohol per person aged 15 years and over are also included.
TIMELINESS
Apparent consumption of alcohol estimates are published annually and are released approximately 10 months after the end of the reference period. Revised estimates are available a year later (after revisions to the Estimated Resident Population (ERP) have been made).
ACCURACY
The ABS aims to produce high quality statistics on the apparent consumption of alcohol from import clearance data from the ACS, excise data on Australian production from the ATO and from wine making enterprises. Error can arise from inaccuracies in collecting, recording and processing the data. However, the ABS has limited influence over error associated with data collected by external sources.
Because of July 2006 excise tariff reform, new data items (for beer brewed on the premises) which were not provided in previous editions have been introduced to the ATO source data. These additional data items were prorated across all beer strengths for this edition. To enable time series comparison for the periods 2004–05 to 2006–07, previously published data for these periods have been revised and footnoted.
The July 2006 excise tariff reform also resulted in changes to excise beer data provided by the ATO. As a result, the ABS estimated the quantity and total alcohol content of beer in this edition using proportions of 2004–05 and 2005–06 excise data. Thus, the total quantity of alcohol available for consumption and apparent consumption per capita for beer may not be directly comparable with data prior to 2004–05.
The July 2006 excise tariff reform also affected the level of detail of spirit data. Ready to drink (RTD) data are now published separately. To facilitate comparisons over time, RTD data used in this edition, from 2004–05 and 2005–06, have been revised. The total for spirits excludes RTDs.
Wine estimates in this edition are consistent with those published in previous editions of this publication. Wine estimates were also revised after revisions to the ERP and footnoted to enable time series comparison.
In recognition of the inherent inaccuracy involved in estimation, apparent consumption of alcohol estimates in text and accompanying summary tables published by the ABS are rounded. Apparent per capita consumption of alcohol estimates are based on unrounded numbers.
COHERENCE
Comparable annual estimates of apparent consumption of alcohol have been published at the national level between 1946–47 and 1998–99 in the publication: Apparent Consumption of Foodstuffs, Australia (cat. no. 4306.0). Although a break in series occurred between 1999–00 and 2001–02, estimates on the apparent consumption of alcohol have been published separately since 2002–03. However, a comparison of the estimates over time should be undertaken with care.
The Explanatory Notes in this edition of the publication contains information pertinent to this particular release which may impact on comparison over time.
INTERPRETABILITY
The Apparent Consumption of Alcohol publication contains detailed Explanatory Notes designed to provide information to users on data sources, terminology and estimation methods used in producing these statistics.
Caution should be exercised when using estimates from this publication in relation to alcohol consumption. Estimates relate to the availability of alcohol rather than a measure of the actual consumption of alcohol by persons aged 15 years and over.
ACCESSIBILITY
Estimates on the apparent consumption of alcohol are only published at the national level. These are available free of charge on the ABS web site <https://www.abs.gov.au/>. From 1946–47 to 1998–99, estimates on apparent consumption of alcohol were published in Apparent Consumption of Foodstuffs, Australia. Estimates from 1991–92 are available on the ABS web site.
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