FEATURE RELEASES


Recent ABS Publications

Information Paper: Outcome of the 16th Series Australian Consumer Price Index (CPI) review, Dec 2010 (cat. no. 6469.0)

Released on 6 December 2010, this information paper presents the outcomes of the 16th series CPI review and outlines the future direction of the CPI. The 16th series CPI review was comprehensive, and included a systematic examination of CPI concepts, methodologies and data sources, undertaken to ensure that the index continues to meet community needs. Further details of the issues considered in the review can be found in Information Paper: Issues to be considered during the 16th Series Australian Consumer Price Index Review (cat. no. 6468.0).

Key outcomes from the review include:

• Endorsement of the principal purpose of the CPI as a general measure of household inflation.
• Current suite of living cost indexes to continue, with other complementary quarterly price indexes for particular population subgroups to be produced subject to demand and funding.
• From the September quarter 2011, the indirectly measured component of financial services will be removed from the headline CPI until such time that methods and data sources are sufficiently robust for reintroduction to the CPI.
• The publication Average Retail Prices of Selected Items, Eight Capital Cities (cat. no. 6403.0.55.001) will be discontinued after the June quarter 2011 issue.

Other key outcomes, such as the production of a high quality monthly CPI and increasing the frequency with which expenditure weights are updated would involve additional costs and appropriate funding is required before they can be progressed.


Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS): Volume 1 - Main Structure and Greater Capital City Statistical Areas, July 2011 (cat. no. 1270.0.55.001)

This publication, released on 23 December 2010, is the first in a series of Volumes that will detail the various structures and regions of the new Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS). It contains information relating to the ASGS Main Structure (Statistical Area Levels 1 - 4) and the Greater Capital City Statistical Areas.

Future Volumes will be released to cover the following structures:

• ASGS Volume 2: Indigenous Structure
• ASGS Volume 3: Non-ABS Structures
• ASGS Volume 4: Significant Urban Areas, Urban Centres and Localities/Section of State
• ASGS Volume 5: Remoteness Structure

Each Volume will contain maps of the new ASGS boundaries, digital boundaries for the regions as MapInfo Interchange Format files and ESRI Shape files, and codes, labels and hierarchies for all the regions described in the publication in .csv format.

For further information, please email geography@abs.gov.au or follow the link to the ABS Geography web portal at https://www.abs.gov.au/geography.


Quality Management of Statistical Processes Using Quality Gates, Dec 2010 (cat. no. 1540.0)

Quality gates are designed to improve the early detection of errors or flaws in production processes. In the ABS, quality gates consist of six components - Placement, Quality Measures, Roles, Tolerance, Actions and Evaluation.

Released on 23 December 2010, this information paper describes in detail the quality gate framework to enable it to be used as a statistical risk mitigation strategy, primarily for statistical processes. In particular, the paper provides an explanation of each of the six components of a quality gate, followed by examples and templates to assist agencies to apply the framework.


Australian Social Trends, Dec 2010 (cat. no. 4102.0)

Australian Social Trends draws together a wide range of statistics from the ABS and other official sources to provide a picture of Australian society and how it is changing over time.

The latest edition, released on 14 December 2010, contains three articles.

'Moving house' explores the rates and reasons behind housing mobility across the life course, as well as barriers to moving house. Almost half (45%) of parents in couple families with dependent children had moved in the five years to 2007-08, compared with 17% of people living in older households without children over that same five year period. People living in young households without children were very mobile, with the vast majority having moved in the last five years (90%). Many of these younger people had moved because they had purchased a home (25%), moved in with their partner (20%), or for employment reasons (15%).

'One for the country: recent trends in fertility' examines the recent increase in fertility and how socioeconomic and geographic factors might be related to fertility patterns. There are more babies born to Australian women in the last half decade than in any other five year period. Since dipping to an all time low in 2001 at 1.73 babies per woman, Australia's total fertility rate has risen over the past decade, to 1.96 babies per woman in 2008 and 1.90 babies per woman in 2009. Age specific fertility rates were highest among women aged 30-34 years with 124 babies per 1,000 women, up from 108 in 1999.

'Australian households: the future' uses household and family projections to examine possible future living arrangements for Australian households. It is projected that couples with children at home, currently Australia's most common family type (2.6 million in 2006 and 3.1 million projected in 2031), will be overtaken by couples without children at home over the next couple of decades. Couples without children at home, mostly older 'empty nesters', are projected to be the fastest growing family type, with a projected increase of 1.4 million (to 3.5 million) between 2006 and 2031. Lone person households, many being older widowed women, are projected to grow by 1.3 million (to 3.2 million) over the same period.

South Australia is projected to have one of the slowest growth rates, with an annual average growth rate of 1.1% per year, well under the Australian growth rate of 1.7% per year. Adelaide is projected to increase by 146,600 households, to 606,100 by 2031, with an annual growth rate of 1.1%, making it the second slowest capital city in terms of growth rates, only in front of Hobart.

Further information is available in the December edition of Australian Social Trends, Dec 2010 (cat. no. 4102.0).


Other News

ABS challenges students to design Australia's data future

The ABS recently issued a challenge to Australian tertiary students, inviting them to help design Australia's online data future. With more than $2,000 in prize money and an iPad up for grabs, the inaugural ABS CodePlay competition promises to attract some of Australia's best and brightest technical minds.

CodePlay is a competition run by the ABS as a Government 2.0 initiative to help drive collaboration between students, developers and national and international statistical agencies. It aims to reward innovative ways of making statistical data more appealing, relevant and useful. CodePlay asks students to transform data into information that is free and easy for the Australian community to understand and use.

Entries close on 15 April 2011. For further information on ABS CodePlay,

2011 CensusAtSchool questionnaire now open

The CensusAtSchool 2011 questionnaire was officially opened on 24 January 2011. CensusAtSchool is a free, online questionnaire and analysis tool for students in Years 5 to 12. It is conducted nationwide, and provides real data relevant to students. Due to the popularity of the program, it will now be run annually, as opposed to every second year.

2011 data will be made available in July, although data from previous questionnaires can be accessed at any time of the year.

Further information is available from https://www.abs.gov.au/censusatschool.