Australian System of National Accounts

This issue of the Australian System of National Accounts (cat. no. 5204.0) incorporates the 2020-21 annual supply and use tables. For information on the role of supply and use tables in the national accounts, see the 2020-21 supply and use tables section below. The 3.6% rise in GDP for 2021-22 is a 0.3 percentage point downward revision from the result published in June quarter 2022. There are also revisions to component series arising from the 2020-21 benchmarks, new data and data confrontation to balance the accounts.

The ABS compiles supply and use (SU) tables to generate balanced annual estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The SU tables are compiled from 1994-95 to 2020-21 and result in the annual statistical discrepancies for this period being zero. Years prior to 1994-95 have a non-zero statistical discrepancy because SU tables have not been compiled, and so the data remain unbalanced. Similarly, estimates for the latest year (in this case 2021-22) have a statistical discrepancy because SU tables have not yet been constructed.

The supply table measures the goods and services produced in Australia and imports, while the use table measures the use of goods and services for intermediate consumption, final consumption, gross fixed capital formation, changes in inventories and exports. Domestic supply and intermediate consumption are cross-classified by industry and product categories, while the other components are simply classified by product category. The use table also provides information on the generation of income from production for each industry.

A large number of data sources are used to compile the national accounts, such as business activity surveys, household expenditure surveys, investment surveys, foreign trade statistics and government finance statistics.

Revisions have been made to SU tables in 2018-19 and 2019-20 resulting from new and updated information received from these sources. Additionally, the SU tables have been revised in line with the updates made though the targeted historical revisions applied to the Australian National Accounts, see Improved estimates of the annual national accounts: Results of the 2022 historical revisions for further information.

The September quarter 2022 issue of Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, to be released on 7 December 2022, will also incorporate these revisions.

The SU tables are available in Data Explorer (http://explore.data.abs.gov.au/). Data from the SU tables are used to construct the Australian National Accounts: Input-Output Tables. These products present structural detail underlying the Australian economy and provide weights for price indexes.

This issue of Australian System of National Accounts contains changes to publication table 16. Selected analytical series. The analytical series COE per hour has been added to the table to provide further insights into labour costs. Quarterly and annual estimates will also be added to the September quarter 2022 issue of Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, scheduled for release on 7 December 2022.

If you require further information on the changes, please contact national.accounts@abs.gov.au.

Australian National Accounts: Supply Use Tables (cat. no. 5217.0) 

The 2020-21 issue of Australian National Accounts: Supply Use Tables for the period 1994-95 to 2020-21 was published on 28 October 2022. The Supply Use tables were introduced in the annual National Accounts in 1998 as an integral part of the annual compilation of the Australian System of National Accounts. They are used to ensure Gross Domestic Product is balanced for all three approaches (production, expenditure and income) and provide the annual benchmarks from which the quarterly estimates are compiled. 

This release previously used catalogue number 5204.0.