1. Neighbourhood Houses Victoria Presenter : Rebecca Roberts
Hi thanks for having me, I’m Rebecca Roberts from the Census User Support and Engagement team

2. Value of the Census
Allocation of government funds and support for elections
Government planning, administration and policy development
Use in other ABS statistics
Use by communities, businesses and researchers
As you would know, the Census provides the base for official counts of Australians and the dwellings in which they live.
It also provides a snapshot of the economic, social and cultural make-up of our nation, and tells the story of how Australia has changed over time.
On August , we asked everyone in Australia to answer up to 61 questions on the Census form.
Overall dwelling response rate was 95.1%. This is comparable with past Census’s and those in other countries.
The most comprehensive and detailed picture of Australia’s population and housing, and how Australia is changing.

3. 2016 Census release dates We released data in 3 main stages.
In July last year age, sex, income and dwelling information (as well as much of the cultural data) was released into the 4 main products - Quickstats, Community profiles, TableBuilder and Data packs.
We had started to release some analytical articles and continue to release these which I will talk about later.
In October we released Migration, occupation, education and method of travel to work data into those products
And more recently in February and March we released ACLD and SEIFA, and the other day we released some new articles about Commuting Distance to work.

4. Before we go any further it is important to have a basic knowledge of Geography.

5. Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS)
The Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) is a standard for dividing Australia into smaller areas for outputting data, kind of like a jigsaw puzzle with different sized pieces. Each puzzle breaks Australia up in different ways, the SA1 jigsaw has 57,000 different pieces while the SA4 jigsaw only have around 100 pieces. You might have also picked up this handout too, which will be useful later when you’re back at your desk.
You can see here that there are ABS Structures and Non-ABS Structures
ABS Structures are the ones that are defined by us, and are built up from meshblocks and are even in size. The ABS boundaries are very stable – they are only updated every 5 years
Non ABS Structures are the kinds of boundaries you will know, like suburbs, LGA, Post codes and Electoral Divisions. (These can change every year), and are not comparable in size for example….Brisbane LGA has 1,131,155 people and Barcoo has 271 people
When choosing what geography to use, there are a few things to consider.
You need to think about:
The scale you are after: So are you comparing states, parts of a city or country towns?
If it is for a non-statistical audience, it might be better to use something like state suburbs or LGAs rather than SA2s or SA3s – this gives the audience a frame of reference
Changes over time; it might better to use a boundary that hasn’t changed, in particular LGAs and electoral divisions can change every year.

6. Choosing a geography
This just shows the difference in boundaries a bit more clearer.
In this case, Local Government Area in Yellow
SA3 in blue
State electoral divisiion in Red
SA2 in Green
And it highlights how important it is to get geography right for telling the right story.

7. Census Geography Basics
..but if you want to play with it yourself, fortunately, from the footer on the ABS Website, if you click on the statistical geography link, you can open ABS Maps to view and compare different types of geographies. This link is also available from the TableBuilder homepage, which I’ll point out too…
Here, I have selected SA2s in Red and SA3s are in blue around Brisbane as an example, you can also zoom in and zoom out , and search for anywhere in Australia.
Happy to demonstrate this later on too.

8. Census Geography Basics
For more information you can go to our Census Geography Basics page, linked from the Census landing page.
It contains a description of each of the popular types of geography you may want to use.
These are useful descriptions, particularly if you’re unsure where to start, we also have an excellent explanation of each structure in the Census Dictionary found on the Census Page too.

9. Now onto accessing the data…

10. Accessing Census data
From the Census page on the ABS Website is where you will find many of our products…….you are probably more interested in Quickstats, Community profiles and SEIFA under More Census products. You might be interested in TableBuilder too, if you want to construct your own tables from Census data.
Most of these products are available free of charge from the ABS Website, with the exception of TableBuilder Pro, TableBuilder Basic is still free
The ABS has made Census data more accessible by removing the need to register to use TableBuilder (and datapacks)
We have also streamlined the look and feel of the Census webpages
And the pages scale automatically for different devices

11. QuickStats : The entry to Census demographic data
On to QuickStats which enables you to quickly and easily access summary information about the people, families and dwellings in an area and compare it to state and national data.
It includes a map of the selected area, and at the state and national level, QuickStats highlights key differences between previous Census years.
There are 3 templates available for this data - General, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and Country of Birth.
You can get data down to the smallest geographical level of SA1 in Quickstats. If you know the 7 digit code (I’m happy to show you how to get the code from ABS maps)

12. Community Profiles
Community Profiles provide a bit more data in Excel format and
Details characteristics of people, families and dwellings and cover most topics from the Census form
There are 4 templates available:
General Community Profile (59 pages of data)
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Peoples Profile (16 pages of data)
Time Series Profile (35 pages of data)
Working population community profile

13. Community Profiles
This is what you get on the first page of the timeseries profile for all of Victoria
General community profiles go down as small as post codes and suburbs
Timeseries profiles go down as small as SA2 and LGAs.

14. SEIFA – Socio- Economic Indexes for Areas
SEIFA is a suite of four indexes that have been created from social and economic Census information. Each index ranks geographic areas across Australia in terms of their relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage. The four indexes each summarise a slightly different aspect of the socio-economic conditions in an area. The four indexes in SEIFA 2016 are:
Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage (IRSD)
Index of Relative Socio-economic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD)
Index of Economic Resources (IER) 
Index of Education and Occupation (IEO)

15. SEIFA – Socio- Economic Indexes for Areas
1. SEIFA Publication
Technical Paper
FAQs
Data cubes
Interactive Maps
2. Analytical Article about SEIFA within Reflecting Australia
Found on the Stories from the Census (on the main Census page)
10 most advantaged and disadvantaged areas by LGA and State
Compares SEIFA results with Country of Birth, Language spoken at home and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
3. SEIFA data is available within TableBuilder
The ABS has 3 main releases of SEIFA information
The publication which contains a technical paper, FAQs , concepts and methodology behind the creation of the indexes. The data is available in the downloads tab as excel files, or you can view it from the interactive maps which I’ll show you soon
The Census team has put together an analytical article which brings together Census data with the SEIFA index scores. It’s written in a less technical format and is a great place to start learning about SEIFA
And the SEIFA indexes are available in TableBuilder which I will show you soon.
***DEMO THE INTERACTIVE MAPS ***

16. Making your own tables with TableBuilder
If you want more detailed Census data, I can show you how to make your own tables using the tablebuilder Product?

17. What is Census TableBuilder?
TableBuilder is an online self-help tool that allows users to build their own tables from a range of Census variables and geographies.
TableBuilder Guest
TableBuilder Basic
TableBuilder Pro
So, what is TableBuilder?
TableBuilder is an online self-help tool that allows users to build their own tables from a range of Census variables and geographies.
Our catalogue contains data from Census 2006, 2011 and 2016
We have 3 versions of TableBuilder on offer
With TableBuilder Guest
You can view the Census TableBuilder Basic databases without registering
guest users are not able to save tables and recodes or submit large tables
With Basic
Users are required to register with an address, but the product is free of charge.
Tables and custom data can be saved.
It provides access to nearly all variables available in Census data (down to SA1)
Pro
charged product - designed for advanced Census data users ($2,350 per year)
create large or complex tables (large table mode 10,000 cells)
supports a large variety of cross-classified tables (only in Pro can you cross classify Person, Family and Dwelling variables)
There are 5 more available Databases
Census data Is available down to Mesh block level
access to 39 more variables than Basic (for example number of bedrooms and motor vehicles per dwelling is available in ranges in Basic, but in Pro you can select any number up to 30)
TB pro also contains SEIFA deciles which is not available in Basic

18. What is Census TableBuilder?
Regardless of the version of TableBuilder you choose, there is a mapping and graphing functionality available, which I can show you soon.

19. Questions? 1300 135 070 @ABSCensus Census Australia ABSstatistics
Questions and demo
ABS Website, Quickstats , Community profile Timeseries , SEIFA interactive maps, TableBuilder (including SEIFA indexes), ABS Maps
Census Australia
ABSstatistics