Australian Bureau of Statistics faces budget cut

April 21, 2008 Budget cuts at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) are expected to impact on several key surveys, including a loss of accuracy in the monthly Labour Force Survey, and the scrapping of several planned developments for the 2011 Census of Population and Housing.

It has also been reported that the ABS would stop publishing the annual yearbook.

News Ltd has reported that an angry response has been forecasted from people who use the ABS' statistics.

The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that the cuts are likely to save 1.5 billion Australian dollars.

Brian Pink, the chief executive of the ABS described the organization in an interview last month. He said that "the Bureau of Statistics is the national statistical agency here in Australia, and we provide a very wide range of statistical services to the Australian and state and territory governments, to business, to community more generally, and we cover a very broad range of economic, social, population and more recently environmental statistics, and a lot of analysis and research around various themes and topics within those general domains."