Peter Costello made access to ABS publications free in 2005, saying at the time that they were ‘the cornerstone of our decision-making’

Charging for access to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data would be “extremely detrimental”, one statistician has said, and another described free access to key data as a “public good”.

The treasurer, Joe Hockey, signalled the possibility of re-commercialising access to ABS figures after the bureau announced it was reviewing its methods of adjusting key employment figures.

Peter Costello, the treasurer in the Howard government, made access to ABS publications free in 2005. Prior to this, publications cost between $20 and $40.

In a speech announcing the change, Costello said ready access to statistics was of “paramount importance”.

“Statistics are so vital to our national life, and have made such a key contribution to nation-building, that they lend themselves easily to structural analogies,” he said.

“They are the cornerstone of our decision-making, the very building blocks of research, planning and discussion within governments and the community and are one of the important pillars of our democracy. Ready access to those statistics for those that need them is of paramount importance.”

Jeff Borland, a professor of economics at the University of Melbourne, said: “I think there’s a strong public good argument for thinking it’s the government that should be providing general funding to the ABS rather than a user-pays system.”

Borland said there was an argument for some niche surveys being commercialised, but that this didn’t extend to important national surveys.

“While there are some types of surveys that benefit a limited group, maybe there should be some cross funding. But when you’re talking about the labour force survey which is a general-purpose survey used by academic researchers, welfare organisations, government departments, and individuals, basically it’s used so extensively that it makes sense for the government to be funding that,” he said.

Rob Hyndman is a professor of statistics at Monash University and is also on the ABS methodology advisory board. He said having a well-funded national statistics bureau was important for businesses and others.

“I think this [re-commercialisation] would be an extremely detrimental thing to happen,” he said. “There’s lots of evidence that having good, well-funded statistics bureaus is one of the best things that government can do to support evidence-based policy making across government and business. And if they put hurdles in the way of that, that to me seems like a bad idea.”

The ABS is reducing staffing and costs to address an increased “efficiency dividend” which in effect amounts to a $50m reduction in funding from the government.

Hyndman said: “The ABS has had a series of funding cuts over several years, not just with the current government but also with the previous government, and I think that’s a problem in terms of them being able to deliver a high-quality service across a broad range of data and economic indicators.”