{"id":20283,"date":"2025-07-25T04:45:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T04:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/20283\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T04:45:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T04:45:11","slug":"the-abs-just-had-to-bin-some-statistics-heres-what-went-wrong-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/20283\/","title":{"rendered":"The ABS just had to bin some statistics. Here\u2019s what went wrong\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wasted data is never good. And it\u2019s especially painful during a housing affordability crisis when we need the information to formulate good policies.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s especially a problem given we haven\u2019t had an update to this particular set of statistics since 2019 because of disruptions during the pandemic \u2013 and won\u2019t get an update until at least 2027 given the lag with which the results are released.<\/p>\n

So, what exactly went wrong?<\/p>\n

First, it\u2019s worth noting that the bureau (also known as the ABS), is not alone in some of the hurdles it faces. National statistical organisations around the world are finding it increasingly difficult to collect information from households.<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s statistics agency \u2013 the Office for National Statistics (abbreviated to the less, or perhaps more, fortunate ONS) \u2013 has had to start fixing some of its \u201cvirtually unusable\u201d <\/a>employment figures as well as some of its data on inflation and trade. Experts have warned these issues have left the UK\u2019s central bank, the Bank of England, \u201cflying blind\u201d.<\/p>\n

The problem with its employment data mostly came down to the response rate which plummeted to 17 per cent at its lowest point. Jonathan Portes, an economist at King\u2019s College London, said UK households had become more reluctant to respond to surveys<\/a> \u2013 an issue that worsened during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\"Wasted<\/p>\n

Wasted data is never good. And it\u2019s especially painful during a housing affordability crisis when we need as much information as possible to come up with good policies.Credit: Monique Westermann<\/p>\n

But he also flagged years of tight budgets and low pay for the office\u2019s statisticians compared with private sector peers as further possible factors in the falling quality of the data.<\/p>\n

Independent economist Nicki Hutley says the bureau \u2013 which in 2023-24 received about $417 million in government funding \u2013 is probably also not adequately funded.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be great if we had a properly resourced bureau that could make sure that it was able to do things in ways that it was comfortable,\u201d she says, noting some sets of data such as labour force figures were recently being drawn from smaller sample sizes.<\/p>\n

While a spokesperson for the bureau said the overall response rate for the survey of income and housing was \u201cacceptable\u201d, they said the mix of responses was not representative of the population.<\/p>\n

There are a few reasons for that, including that people now prefer to interact with the government online, at a time that suits them, with some people being especially difficult to reach.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s driving up the cost of conducting these surveys because households are becoming less available and willing to engage, the spokesperson said: \u201c[This] means field interviewers may need to make more frequent contact attempts, including in-person visits, to households.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the bureau says it generally receives excellent cooperation from households, it can legally direct people to provide information.<\/p>\n

\"More<\/p>\n

More than 50,000 people found work in June.Credit: Jeff Allan<\/p>\n

Besides being more annoying and knocking on more doors, the spokesperson said the bureau would make it easier for households to participate in surveys by improving the design of surveys and the ways in which they could offer help and receive feedback.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

In December last year, the government committed $98 million over four years for the bureau to improve how it collects data and interacts with Australians, including improving the digital experience for key surveys.<\/p>\n

But the bureau has also learned some lessons. It will, for example, monitor response rates more closely and frequently so that it can intervene earlier if the data isn\u2019t looking up to scratch \u2013 and therefore avoid having to bin all the findings at the end.<\/p>\n

It has also set clearer targets to allow for better tracking of the results as they come in.<\/p>\n

While the bureau didn\u2019t point to specific issues with the design of its 2023-24 survey, its spokesperson said some wording of questions had been changed from previous years.<\/p>\n

\u2018A data series that should be refreshed every two years will be badly damaged by a gap of at least five years [since the last release].\u2019<\/p>\n

UNSW professor of housing research policy, Hal Pawson<\/p>\n

When it came to changes to its 2025-26 survey of income and housing, the bureau undertook \u201cextra user testing\u201d, testing updates with the Australian public more vigorously before sending the survey out widely.<\/p>\n

That testing was aimed at more carefully checking the public\u2019s understanding of the questions to make sure it aligned with the things the bureau wanted to measure, and looking at how people worked their way through the survey forms to make sure they were easy to use but collected the necessary information.<\/p>\n

While Hutley says the missing data is not catastrophic, she says it is pretty painful.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people might think that this is not necessarily significant because there are other indicators that are available and some workarounds for some things, but there\u2019s certainly things you can\u2019t do, and this data gets used for an awful lot of research, especially around things like income inequality which is a growing issue in Australia\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing told, \u2018well, we\u2019re not confident in the series\u2019, is a little bit concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a problem given the data is meant to be an ongoing measure that allows changes and conditions to be tracked over time.<\/p>\n

In a comment on LinkedIn, UNSW professor of housing research policy, Hal Pawson, said the missing data, which is supposed to be updated every two years, was a \u201cshocking slip-up\u201d by the bureau.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis survey provides invaluable official data on rental affordability and housing under-utilisation, as well as on broader topics including the distribution of income and wealth,\u201d Pawson said. \u201cA data series that should be refreshed every two years will be badly damaged by a gap of at least five years [since the last release].\u201d<\/p>\n

Although this particular oversight may not be the end of the world, it will have consequences, and it\u2019s an issue the bureau will be acutely aware of for some time.<\/p>\n

As the census, the biggest survey of them all, enters the testing phase before its five-yearly distribution in 2026, the stakes will be even higher. That survey is one the bureau can\u2019t afford to get wrong \u2013 or ghosted on.<\/p>\n

The Market Recap newsletter is a wrap of the day\u2019s trading. Get it each weekday afternoon<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wasted data is never good. And it\u2019s especially painful during a housing affordability crisis when we need the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-20283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}