Australia Yearbook - 2001

xl Year Book Australia 2001
by governments both for support and for
illumination, and by others to judge the
performance of governments and their programs.
In this complex relationship it has been said that
an indicator of how well a democracy is working
is the degree of independence the official
statistical agencies are accorded, and their
performance in producing relevant and timely
statistics. Currently, the ABS performs well
against these criteria and we should expect the
same to be the case in 100 years time.
Endnotes
1 The contents draw heavily on the special article
‘‘Australian Statisticians and the Development of
Official Statistics’’ published in Year Book
Australia 1988, and on the first chapter,
Statistical Recording, in Victorian Year Book
1973.
2 Statistical Register of South Australia, 1859,
Report, p. iii.
3 Victorian Year Book Containing a Digest of
the Statistics of the Colony for the Year 1873 by
Henry Heylyn Hayter, pp. iii–iv.
4 Colin Forster and Cameron Hazelhurst 1988,
‘‘Australian Statisticians and the Development of
Official Statistics’’, Year Book Australia 1988, p.
33.
6 Op. cit., p. 6.
7 Op. cit., p. 12.
8 Unpublished and undated paper, G. H.
Knibbs, The Development of the Statistical
System of Australia, p.6.
9 ‘JD’ published in Smith’s Weekly, 9 April
1921.
10 Unpublished and undated paper, E.K.
Foreman, State Governments’ Statistical
Requirements—-Historical Perspective.
11 For an account of the ‘‘Integration’’
project see the Special Article ‘‘Australian
Integrated Censuses’’ in Year Book Australia
1970, p. 1041.
12 For more detail on this and other
initiatives in this era see the Special Article
‘Two great Commonwealth Statisticians’ in
Year Book Australia 2000 p. xi.
13 Hermann Habermann, Two Statistical
Challenges for the Future, paper presented
to the 30th anniversary celebrations of the
Statistical Institute for Asia and the Pacific,
Tokyo, 26 August 2000.
14 Trend Letter, Vol 18, No 24, 9 December
1999.
5 Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics
(CBCS) 1908, Official Year Book of the
Commonwealth of Australia, 1901–1907, p.5.