Measures of Australia's Progress

MEASURES OF AUSTRALIA'S PROGRESS

- A Case Study of a National Report based on

Key Economic, Social and Environment Indicators

Dennis Trewin

Australian Bureau of Statistics

Measuring a nation's progress - providing information about whether life is getting better - is one of the most important tasks that a national statistical agency can take on. For almost 100 years, the Australian Bureau of statistics has been measuring Australia's progress through the multitude of statistics we publish relating to Australia's economy, society and environment. However, for the most part, our statistical publications have tended to focus on each of these three broad areas in isolation.

Recent years have seen growing public interest in the interrelationships between economic, social and environmental aspects of life. The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro was a catalyst for discussion, as were calls for better measures of social concerns to supplement the System of National Accounts. There is a great deal of interest as well in developing a broader set of economic statistics that give values to things hitherto left outside the traditional economic system. Around the world a consensus is growing that countries and governments need to develop a more comprehensive view of progress, rather than focusing mainly on economic indicators such as Gross Domestic Product.

To address this issue and to contribute factual information to the discussion on progress, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has produced two volumes of Measures of Australia's progress (MAP), the most recent in April 2004. It plans to update the publication on an annual basis. It was an intentionally experimental publication. I noted in the Foreword that the project was ambitious, and one that would develop over time. We sought comments and received a lot of feedback, most of it favourable. This encouraged us to continue with the development.

In this paper, I will provide more information on the driving force that led to MAP; describe the publication; the underlying logic and the reasons we chose this logic; the indicators and the steps we undertook to agree on the indicators; and the choices we made on how to present the indicators. I will also describe the public reaction, both positive and negative, and the influence the publication has had particularly on policy debate. Of course, there are lessons learnt from an experiment like this and they are summarised. Finally, I will outline our future plans with MAP.