A good thing

[erudito]

Have been beavering away working on the housing policy consultancy, writing a piece for publication particularly concentrating on Sydney's problems.

It has been made a lot easier by the change in policy for ABS statistics making most ABS published statistics freely available on its website

Comments

Point

[erudito]

Their website isn't the best. The US Census Bureau one is much better, for example. And the ABS doesn't produce anything near as useful as the Statistical Abstract of the United States.

Wasn't aware of the library thing. That is a step backwards in access. But I never found public libraries a good source for ABS, they never seemed to have them very intelligently arranged (the State Library of Victoria for example).

Re: Point

[basal_surge]

I've noticed some odd idiosyncracies of libraries here at the ANU - lots of small sub libraries, difficulty getting library cards (I gave up after six months of trying), wierd classification systems (sure, use a dewey decimal or subject classification, but don't split up books by size, that's just wierd.

[tcpip]

Given the ABS has the legal power to force folk to give information, and the clear public good nature of many statistics, one can only say the change in policy has been a thoroughly good thing.

There is a body of opinion which suggests that anything research that receives public funding should be publically available.

In the right direction

[erudito]

I am can think of some obvious exceptions (e.g. ONA). But the general notion seems sound.