Statistical revisions are carried out regularly in the Australian National Accounts, to reflect the most current information and estimation methods. For the December, March and June quarter National Accounts releases, the ABS limit revisions to the most recent quarters only. Annually, the ABS will apply revisions to a longer time series of selected estimates, which is referred to as a “historical revision". These revisions are first seen in the Annual National Accounts, and then in the September quarter release.
Historical revisions are important for several reasons including improved data quality, to update classifications and to improve international comparability.
Historical revisions in the National Accounts have traditionally been undertaken on an ad-hoc basis. This involved holding back individual historical revisions until a time where many changes were put through in bulk. From 2021, the ABS adopted a policy of implementing targeted annual historical revisions. This is to ensure that the National Accounts use the most up to date data available which best captures changes in a dynamic economy and is more responsive to user needs. The ABS will advise users on planned historical revisions in advance of publication.
The Annual National Accounts Supply-Use introduce revisions for the three open years as part of the standard benchmarking process. As such, the impact of the historical revisions can be difficult to isolate for the ‘open’ three years.
The 2024 round of revisions incorporates two major historical revision improvements. For further details of the historical revisions improvements please see the Impacts from the 2024 Annual National Accounts historical revisions article.
Improvements to the measurement of digital services
The ABS has improved the methodology of capturing digital services, i.e. imports of online audio and video streaming, internet advertising and computer software services, within the National and International Accounts. Such improvements led to revisions to international trade statistics for the period 2009-10 to 2022-23 (inclusive). The use of digital services within the Australian economy led to significant revisions in gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) and household final consumption expenditure (HFCE).
Film and Television 2021-22 Flexible Survey capital estimates
The ABS has aligned the value of GFCF on Artistic originals with the estimates from the ABS 2021-22 Film, Television and Digital Games publication for the period 2016-17 to 2018-19 (inclusive). The previous iteration of the Film, Television and Digital Games publication was released for the 2015-16 reference period. Between the two publications, Artistic originals estimates between 2016-17 and 2018-19 were extrapolated using the 2015-16 publication and other indicators.
The suite of 2024 historical revisions appear in the following economic releases:
Australian System of National Accounts, 2023-24 - 25 October 2024
Australian National Accounts: State Accounts - 20 November 2024
Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, September quarter 2024 - 4 December 2024
Estimates of Industry Level KLEMS Multifactor Productivity, 2022-23 financial year– 10 December 2024
Estimates of Industry Multifactor Productivity, 2023-24 financial year – 22 January 2025