







































AUSTRALIAN POPULATION STUDIES  2023 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pages 17-29 

 

 

© Leigh 2023. Published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence 3.0 Australia  
(CC BY-NC 3.0 AU). Journal website: www.australianpopulationstudies.org 

Commentary 

How COVID changed the world of data 

Andrew Leigh  Parliament of Australia 

Email: Andrew.Leigh.MP@aph.gov.au. Address: Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600, Australia 

Paper received 7 November 2023; accepted 30 November 2023; published 6 December 2023 

This is an edited version of a speech delivered to the Population Symposium at the Australian National 

University School of Demography on 6th October 2023. 

1. Introduction 

COVID might have shrunk our worlds to frequent Zoom calls in which we took it in turns to remind each 

other ‘You’re on mute’. But COVID also opened up a whole new world of data. Amidst the most severe 

health pandemic in a century, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) produced new data products, 

shortened some of its release timelines, and adapted data series. As a consequence of the pandemic, 

Australians have access to more timely and frequent updates, new sources of data and greater 

integration. This article explores how the pandemic changed Australia’s data landscape, and how new 

innovations in ‘nowcasting’ might shape the nation’s data infrastructure in the future. 

The COVID pandemic was not only a rapidly evolving health crisis but an economic crisis too – the most 

severe economic downturn since the Great Depression (Kennedy 2022). Restrictions to limit the spread 

of COVID saw a reduction in spending, business turnover, losses in jobs and hours worked, and supply 

chain disruptions (ABS 2022a). By June 2023, GDP had returned to its pre-pandemic trajectory (Figure 

1). However, over the course of the pandemic, the cumulative GDP loss was $116 billion – representing 

the area between the two lines in Figure 1. 

The COVID pandemic rocked the demographic boat. Australia’s population growth slowed to 0.1 per 

cent in 2020–21 – the lowest rate in more than 100 years (Figure 2). Australia’s net overseas migration 

fell into negative territory for the first time since the end of WWII, with a net loss of 85,000 people in 

2020-21 (ABS 2023c). Births fluctuated in interesting ways. In the December 2020 quarter, nine months 

after the pandemic hit, births fell. As Gray et al. (2022) point out, crises can make couples cautious 

about starting a family, and this drop likely reflected the uncertainty that many couples felt in the early 

months of the COVID lockdowns. But then things turned around. In the March 2021 quarter, nine 

months after mid-2020, births hit an all-time high (ABS 2023c). We can’t be sure as to why this 

occurred, but it may be that couples felt a little less anxious about the future as the year unfolded. 

Lockdown boredom may also have been a factor.  

 

http://www.australianpopulationstudies.org/
mailto:Andrew.Leigh.MP@aph.gov.au


18 Leigh Australian Population Studies 7 (1) 2023 

 

 

Figure 1: Australia’s GDP, actual and pre-COVID trajectory 

Source: ABS 2023a and Treasury 

 

 

Figure 2: Australia’s population growth and components of growth, historical and projected 

Source: ABS 2023b and Treasury 

  



Australian Population Studies 7 (1) 2023 Leigh 19 

 

 

Border closures between states and territories reduced internal mobility. The number of interstate 

moves in the year to March 2021 was 30.2 per cent lower than in 2018-19 (ABS 2023c). The pandemic 

also influenced where people wanted to live with an increase in net moves from urban areas towards 

suburban and regional areas (Figure 3) (Centre for Population 2020). COVID doubled the net number of 

people moving to the regions. The break in the data series in Figure 3 is due to the pandemic’s impact 

on Medicare address information this series relied on, discussed below. 

 

Figure 3: Net internal migration to regions outside capital cities, quarterly 

Source: ABS 2023c and ABS 2021d.  

Note: The break in the data series is due to the pandemic’s impact on Medicare address information. 

In 2020-21, regional areas grew faster than capital cities for the first time since 1993-94 (ABS 2023e) 

(Figure 4). The popular television show SeaChange debuted in 1998, but it would take two more 

decades and a pandemic before the data showed more rapid population growth in regional areas than 

capital cities. 

2. Putting the data spotlights on 

The data challenge for government agencies during the pandemic was enormous. Data had to be timely 

to respond to a rapidly changing environment. It had to be delivered at a higher frequency. And data 

had to be continuous and granular to help us understand the different things happening in different 

states and territories. Treasury recognised early on that existing data assets weren’t going to be 

sufficient for handling the speed and scale of dual health and economic shocks. A Treasury paper 

(Hambur et al. 2022) likened using existing data during COVID to the ‘streetlight effect’ where a drunk 

only searches for their lost keys under the lamp post, because that’s where the light is best.  



20 Leigh Australian Population Studies 7 (1) 2023 

 

 

Figure 4: Combined capital city and rest of state population growth, annual 

Source: ABS 2023e and ABS 2019.  

When it came to forecasting during the pandemic, historical data – traditionally the foundation for 

models – suddenly seemed inadequate. The usual patterns and trends, which underpinned models, 

were disrupted, making usual methodologies less reliable. Then there was the unpredictable nature of 

the virus. New strains emerged, with different levels of transmissibility and severity, complicating 

predictive models. The only plausible option involved shining new light on the rapidly evolving 

economic and demographic situation using new sources of data. 

By mid-March 2020 – about the same time that toilet paper madness was unrolling – the ABS already 

had introduced a range of COVID related products. This included preliminary data as well as smaller, 

rapid-response surveys to deliver more timely insights (ABS 2021a, ABS n.d). The ABS introduced the 

Business Impacts of COVID-19 (now named Business Conditions and Sentiments) and the Household 

Impacts of COVID-19 rapid-response surveys. These surveys fast-tracked the time between the field 

and publication. The Business Impacts of COVID-19 survey provided information with a delay of 7 days 

from interviewing to publication, while the Household Impacts of COVID-19 was released around 17 

days after the end of the collection period. 

The ABS also made greater use of alternate data sources, such as non-survey administrative data and 

transactions data to develop indicators (ABS 2021a, ABS n.d). In one example, the ABS partnered with 

other agencies to provide new data through two integrated longitudinal assets – the Person Level 

Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA, formerly known as MADIP) and the Business Longitudinal Analysis Data 

Environment (BLADE). These data assets proved valuable because they could be updated frequently, 

making quicker and more sophisticated analysis possible. The PLIDA and BLADE core data was linked 



Australian Population Studies 7 (1) 2023 Leigh 21 

 

 

providing new insights into the interactions between businesses and their employees (Gruen 2022a). 

These insights allowed governments and policymakers to determine COVID’s impact on the business 

community and examine the economic recovery including employment patterns. Data from the 

Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) are also linked to PLIDA each week and Provisional Death 

Registrations data is linked and updated monthly. During the pandemic, the Department of Health and 

Aged Care used this data to generate insights for Australia’s COVID Vaccine and Treatment Strategy. 

State health departments and primary health networks are also data users. 

The pandemic also saw the emergence of new official data sources. It made practical sense for the ABS 

to draw on data already generated in our increasingly digital world (Gruen 2022a). It makes even more 

sense when that source provided previously unavailable statistics, faster and with greater coverage 

than before. The Single-Touch Payroll is a prime example. From April 2020, the ABS worked with the 

Australian Taxation Office to receive expedited access to the high-frequency Single-Touch Payroll data. 

This access was significant for a few reasons. First, it provided new and almost real-time insights into 

the labour market based on more than 10 million employees in Australia (Gruen 2022a). The teamwork 

resulted in the Weekly Payroll Jobs publication and the more recent Monthly Employee Earnings 

Indicator publication. Second, the access enabled detailed disaggregation including geospatial analysis 

which just wasn’t possible from the existing monthly Labour Force Survey. And third, it filled a major 

void. Treasury’s data experts observed that during the COVID pandemic the ‘unemployment rate was a 

less informative measure of labour market health than usual (because many workers had been stood 

down temporarily or were working reduced hours) and other indicators such as hours worked gained 

more prominence’ (Hambur et al. 2022 p. 4). They noted, ‘the timeliness and broad coverage of Single 

Touch Payroll made it one of the most valuable datasets in assessing the health of the labour market in 

real time… and in modelling fiscal policy response options’ (p. 4). 

The ABS was not the only government agency stepping up to the challenges of measuring COVID’s 

impact. The Australian Institute of Family Studies introduced the Families in Australia Survey series 

(https://aifs.gov.au/research_programs/families-australia-survey) which ran from May 2020 to 

December 2021. The survey series explored how families’ lives changed during the pandemic, covering 

topics such as changes to workforce participation, work patterns, child care, household forms and 

family supports. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare established the COVID-19 Register – a 

national and linked data set (AIHW 2023). The Register combines de-identified COVID case data with 

other data sets, including immunisation, hospitals and deaths data. Importantly, it will be updated as 

more data become available, allowing a long-term view of the effects of COVID on health outcomes 

and health service usage. Combining all the data and research, there are many more lamp posts in the 

data park to help people find their lost keys. 

3. The realm of demographic data in Australia 

Prior to COVID, summary mortality information was reported with a 6-month delay from when the 

death was registered to publication (ABS 2023j). The ABS expedited its mortality data reporting to 

capture the immediate and detailed COVID impacts. The reporting became essential for 

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22 Leigh Australian Population Studies 7 (1) 2023 

 

understanding COVID’s direct impact and its indirect consequences on the population. In June 2020, 

the ABS released the first Provisional Mortality Statistics report to account for the beginning of the 

pandemic (ABS 2020). The ABS continued to produce the report monthly as a way of tracking 

mortality through the pandemic. This meant that deaths were now reported 3 months after they 

occurred and on a more frequent and detailed basis. So the consequence of COVID has been to 

reduce the delay in deaths reporting and support the tracking of mortality during the pandemic and 

beyond. These reports showed that the pandemic could impact mortality in unexpected ways. In 

2022, we saw deaths due to other causes rise, highlighting some of the direct and indirect impacts of 

the pandemic on our health (ABS 2023f). 

The ABS released an article in July on measuring Australia’s excess mortality during the COVID 

pandemic (ABS 2023d). The article provides excess mortality estimates for Australia and the states 

and territories from 2020 to March 2023. One can see the variations across the states over the 

Omicron period especially, with Western Australia recording the lowest and Tasmania the highest in 

this map (Figure 5). 

 
Figure 5: Excess mortality (%), Omicron period (January 2022 – March 2023) 

Source: ABS 2023d 

The ABS found that mortality was 9.1 per cent above the expected number of deaths in the first 

quarter of 2023. In 2022, deaths were 10.9 per cent above expected. This contrasted with the years 

2020 and 2021, when Australia had relatively few COVID cases, and significant mobility restrictions. 

Analysing ABS mortality data for those years, Oxford’s Philip Clarke and I published research in BMJ: 

Global Health that studied the impact of lockdowns on mortality (Clarke and Leigh 2022). We found 



Australian Population Studies 7 (1) 2023 Leigh 23 

 

 

the mortality rate in Australia was 5.9 per cent lower in 2020–2021 than in 2015–2019. Contrary to 

those who claimed lockdowns would increase the death rate, we found lockdowns and social 

distancing reduced short‑term mortality. 

The ABS has published other articles on COVID mortality so we can see how it has been distributed 

across population groups (ABS 2023h). The articles have presented COVID mortality data by 

demographic characteristics. This breakdown helps us track the incidence of direct COVID mortality 

and indirect mortality, and offered insights into demographics variations. Delivering the W.D. Borrie 

Lecture last year, I explored some of the health inequalities created by the COVID pandemic. It turns 

out that although Britain had a higher level of COVID mortality than Australia, the socioeconomic 

patterns of COVID mortality in the two countries are very similar (Leigh 2022). 

Collecting some kinds of demographic data became more difficult during COVID. Registration delays 

in the reporting of births data were especially pronounced in some places during the pandemic as a 

result of activity restrictions and lockdowns (Centre for Population 2021). During the pandemic, the 

Centre for Population – housed in the Australian Treasury – was able to use Medicare newborn 

entrants data from Services Australia (Centre for Population 2021, pp. 42-43). This data provided a 

proxy for births to inform fertility assumptions and improve population projections during the 

pandemic and beyond. 

Migration trends were a major focus during the pandemic. With international travel restrictions, the 

ABS provided more detailed and timely data on returning Australians, international students, and the 

implications for population growth. For example, additional information was included in Overseas 

Arrivals and Departures (OAD) to provide more detail on the numbers of arrivals and departures to 

and from Australia (Gruen 2020). Additional information included analysis of short-term visitor 

arrivals and a breakdown of international students for each state and territory. In response to 

heightened interest in traveller data, the ABS also created the temporary Overseas Travel Statistics 

provisional publication (ABS 2021b). This data was effective in giving governments earlier monthly 

preliminary information on international travel using border crossing data. As a result, information 

for the reference month was available four weeks earlier than what was available in the Overseas 

Arrivals and Departures release (ABS 2021a). Given the value of this information, provisional travel 

data was added to the existing Overseas Arrivals and Departures release from August 2021. The data 

give us a dramatic picture (Figure 6). As shown in this chart, from 20 March 2020, almost all overseas 

travel was banned, as the WHO declared the COVID outbreak a public health emergency. The 

pandemic disrupted international travel with volumes at a record low in 2021. The Government 

began to ease travel restrictions in late 2021. International travel in Australia has seen a resurgence 

since early 2022, with over 19 million arrivals and departures combined across 2022. The ABS also 

introduced more frequent revisions of net overseas migration estimates (Gruen 2022b). This 

improvement was about providing the most up-to-date information and enabled adjustments to the 

preliminary model to account for changed traveller behaviour. 



24 Leigh Australian Population Studies 7 (1) 2023 

 

 
Figure 6: Total overseas arrivals and departures, monthly 

Source: ABS 2023g 

As noted above, internal movements were fascinating from a demographic point of view. With 

borders closing and movement restrictions in place, the ABS adjusted its approach to monitoring 

internal population dynamics, tracking movements between states as well as urban and rural divides. 

COVID challenged traditional understandings of internal migration, not to mention forecasting the 

distribution of the population and the flows of people between areas. Remember the demographic 

boat was rocking – things were still happening fast when the ABS introduced the Provisional Regional 

Internal Migration Estimates (PRIME) in November 2020 (presented in Figure 3). 

These estimates were a way to provide timely insights into internal migration in response to the 

pandemic and the heightened interest in internal migration data. However, the publication was 

suspended after the March 2021 release due to the impact of the COVID vaccination program on 

Medicare data, which is the primary source for internal migration estimates. The vaccination 

program saw the number of people updating their Medicare address data go through the roof – 

reflected in the number of interstate moves jumping to a series record 164,000 in September 2021 

while there were lockdowns and border restrictions in place (Figure 7).  

The pandemic also posed some challenges to the approach taken for finalising internal migration 

estimates from the 2021 Census. The issue with the Medicare data led the ABS to declare that 

movements over the second half of 2021 were not reflective of real world internal migration. In 

addition, the Census data was also affected by lockdown policies in some jurisdictions. The ABS 

responded to these challenges by giving greater weight to the Census and Medicare data that was 

unaffected by these impacts. This included discounting the Medicare data over 2020–21 in favour of 

the Census-based estimates and giving more weight to the earlier (2016) Census data than usual. 



Australian Population Studies 7 (1) 2023 Leigh 25 

 

 

 
Figure 7: Interstate movements (based on Medicare address changes), quarterly 

Source: ABS 2023c 

Note: A large number of Medicare address updates occurred during the rollout of the vaccination program in 2021. 

4. Looking ahead: demographic data post-COVID 

COVID demonstrated the potential for more data integration. The Life Course Data initiative, 

announced in this year’s budget, will connect administrative datasets into a linked longitudinal data 

asset to support evidence-based policy making at the community level. Linking data across different 

subject-matter areas and levels of government will bring many benefits. It will enable more 

comprehensive analysis of the characteristics, programs and service interactions of individuals, 

households and families (Gruen 2023).  

The ABS is exploring new ways to enhance the Census using administrative data. The 2021 Census 

was supported by integrated administrative data that helped in assuring its quality and led to more 

accurate area population counts (ABS 2023i). More recently, new income and benefits data added to 

the 2021 Census for its final data release supported new analysis and insights on Australian 

pensioners. Work to understand administrative data has led to the release of Census-like population 

and housing data snapshots (ABS 2023k; ABS 2023l). These experimental datasets have been 

released as stand-alone products and over time are expected to provide additional information on 

sub-national population and internal migration patterns. 

 

  



26 Leigh Australian Population Studies 7 (1) 2023 

 

5. Conclusion 

The COVID pandemic delivered lasting change to Australia’s statistical systems.  

• Before the pandemic, deaths were reported 6 months after the end of the reporting period. Now, 

they are reported with a 3 month delay. 

• Before the pandemic, the delay in reporting overseas arrivals and departures was 6 weeks. Now, 

provisional data is available in only 2 weeks.  

• Before the pandemic, Australia was one of only two OECD countries (the other being New 

Zealand) to report inflation on a quarterly basis. Now, we have a monthly CPI indicator. 

• As a result of the pandemic, the ABS created the Weekly Payroll Jobs publication and the Monthly 

Employee Earnings Indicator publication. 

Yet there may be more to be done. Right now, the reporting delay is 2 weeks for unemployment, 3½ 

weeks for quarterly inflation, and just over 2 months for national income accounts and house price 

data. By contrast, share market data are available in real time. And in the September 2023 issue of 

the Australian Economic Review, a series of papers explored innovations in ‘nowcasting’. Michael 

Anthonisz of the Queensland Treasury Corporation (QTC) uses data from Bloomberg and Macrobond, 

as well as the Citi Australian Data Change Index and the QTC-constructed Financial Conditions Index 

to provide daily insights into key indicators of the Australian economy including inflation, GDP 

growth and the unemployment rate (Anthonisz 2023).  

Looking locally, Ashton de Silva, Maria Yanotti, Sarah Sinclair and Sveta Angelopoulos find 

unconventional real-time data such as pedestrian counts could be good high-frequency predictors of 

local economies, such as suburbs or central business districts (CBDs) (de Silva et al. 2023). And finally, 

in response to rising house prices, Shuping Shi and Peter C. B. Phillips created a real-time 

“thermometer” of “housing fever” in Australia and New Zealand. Using data on mortgage interest 

rates, rents, disposable income, employment and housing supply the authors diagnose in real-time 

bubbles as they begin to emerge (Shi and Phillips 2023). 

These intriguing examples show what is possible using novel data and machine learning algorithms. It 

may also be possible to use additional data sources to improve estimates of state and territory 

populations, which are used for a range of important purposes, such as allocating Goods and Services 

Tax revenue across jurisdictions. 

It is vital that government continues to watch developments in this space. In producing statistics, 

there is always a trade-off between quality and timeliness. In another crisis, policymakers may want 

data more quickly, even if it comes at the cost of perfection. 

  



Australian Population Studies 7 (1) 2023 Leigh 27 

 

 

Acknowledgments 

My thanks to officials at the Australian Bureau of Statistics for valuable assistance in preparing this 

text, and to editor Tom Wilson and two anonymous referees for feedback on an earlier draft. 

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