Access to quality and reliable telecommunications services has become a central part of modern life. Digital technologies are essential for everyday living and a primary means of accessing information, employment, markets and key services. For children, it is particularly important as these technologies can support their education, social connectedness and their ability to participate in an increasingly digital economy.

For some Australians, however, their lower level of digital inclusion means that they are less able to enjoy the benefits of being online. This includes First Nations people and communities, older Australians, and low-income households.

In the first report of this series 'Use of digital technologies among First Nations children—Findings from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children' (2024) BCARR analyses survey data of First Nations children and families to understand how their use of telecommunications has changed over time. The research also identifies socioeconomic characteristics that impact digital technology use and ownership.

With the continued transition of services and opportunities online, supporting digital inclusion will continue to be a critical part of ensuring all Australians can access those benefits, particularly people living in regional and remote areas.

Digital technologies are transforming how we interact as a community and how businesses and governments operate. Communications services are essential for everyday living and a primary means of accessing information, employment, markets and key services. Affordable communications services are critical for digital inclusion but assessing what is 'affordable' is complex due to diversity of Australian experiences and wants.

This working paper is the first of four papers creating measures that monitor and report on the affordability of communications services. It builds on analysis from the Productivity Commission's Telecommunications inquiry and Universal Service Obligation inquiry to assess trends in household expenditure, pricing and inclusions for broadband and mobile services.

Looking to the future, strong consumer demand for telecommunications services is anticipated to continue. The outlook for affordability will depend on a number of factors including regulatory settings, technology developments, competitive pressures and broader income growth.

Cultural and creative activity is an important part of knowledge-based economies, and it makes a valuable contribution to Australia's economic and social wellbeing.

The Bureau of Communications, Arts and Regional Research regularly publish research on Australia's cultural and creative sectors.

Key findings

Cultural and creative activity contributed $67.4 billion to Australia's economy in 2023–24. This is a 6.6% increase from 2022–23.

The cultural and creative sector contributed 2.5% of Australia's GDP in 2023–24, which is comparable to the Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Services industry.

The largest contributors were advertising and promotion, print media and publishing, film and television and architecture services.

The Cultural and creative activity in Australia 2014–15 to 2023–24 follows an updated methodology developed in 2024 to more accurately reflect the contribution of this important activity. This research is a key action of Revive, Australia's National Cultural Policy, and will assist the government with future targeted investment.

Live music is an important part of Australia’s social and cultural fabric, but there is limited information about the sector’s size and composition. This research seeks to estimate the number of workers in the live music ecosystem and their characteristics.

In the analysis, the Bureau of Communications, Arts and Regional Research (BCARR) considers all occupations required to put on a live music event. This includes primary workers, which are essential to live music (for example, musicians, technicians), supporting workers, where only a portion of their job function may involve live music (for example, ticketing, security, music teachers) and auxiliary workers, whose job indirectly supports live music (for example, hospitality staff).

Key findings

The live music sector employed 41,000 workers in 2019-20, an increase of 5,000 workers from 2015-16. This includes workers across the whole live music ecosystem, including 14,200 primary workers, 10,000 supporting workers and 16,800 auxiliary workers.

COVID-19 was highly disruptive for the live music sector. The report acknowledges the impact that the pandemic had on performances, attendance and ticket revenue.

The report addresses the challenge that low traffic volumes in remote and regional areas pose to traditional cost–benefit analysis (CBA) methods to support road improvements in these areas in line with community expectations and government policy objectives. Roads in remote and regional areas are often provided at standards above what would be considered economically efficient levels under traditional CBA methods, but there is currently no clear way to make a recommendation as to an acceptable standard. This report develops ways to improve the efficiency, equity and transparency of decision-making for road funding in remote and regional areas. CBA is retained as the core appraisal tool, with the additions of social benefits, wider economic benefits and equity weights. The development of the equity weights draws on recent thinking about equity and distributive justice from literature in the disciplines of philosophy, economics and transport planning.

GA plays a range of essential roles in Australia including servicing regional communities, delivering education and health services, regional freight and transport, tourism, recreation, agricultural mustering and spraying, instructional flying, sport and pleasure flying, and emergency services. However, GA is not a stand-alone category in Australia’s System of National Accounts. Instead, it makes up a small subset of a very wide range of economic activities, making it difficult to estimate its actual economic impact. This study considers a range of sources, including innovative methods of matching aircraft registrations to business activity, to estimate the contribution of GA to Australia’s economy.

This report discusses the economics of road maintenance. It develops analytical approaches to help ensure that road expenditure is used in the most efficient and cost-effective manner both in terms of dividing funds between construction and maintenance and allocation of maintenance funds between locations, treatment types and treatment timing. The focus is on the impact of timely and adequate maintenance expenditure on the overall costs to society — that is, costs to road agencies, road users and externalities. The analytical approach and case studies demonstrate the potential costs of delayed or deferred maintenance expenditure, which can result in much higher overall costs, reinforcing the adage: ‘a stitch in time save nine’. The report also provides a computer modelling approach to optimising road maintenance expenditure over time so as to minimise the overall cost to society, without and with constraints on road agency spending levels.

• BITRE-Economics-of-road-maintenance-december-2023.pdf
  (4.12 MB)

Updated content: this report replaces the version uploaded on Friday 14 October. Text and chart changes have been made to the report’s section on age.

The Australian National University (ANU) was engaged by the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE) to develop a model to estimate the social cost of road crashes in Australia. The current study replicates and extends the previous BITRE costing study (BITRE, 2009) by using current data, improved methods and broader scope of analysis, including analysis of who bears the burden of road crashes. The current study also set out to aid in addressing three policy questions posed by BITRE by drawing on results of the costing study as well as a rapid review of relevant literature.

The ANU research team members include Emily Lancsar, Ralf Steinhauser, Siobhan Bourke, Robert Breunig, Russell Gruen, Leo Dobes, Liza Munira, Liliana Bulfone, Kathryn Glass, Cameron Gordon, and Jolene Cox.

The BITRE team was Tim Risbey and Dr Gary Dolman, with key contributions from Dr Mark Harvey, Leo Soames and Simon O'Mahony, and Neil Thompson from the Office of Road Safety.

BITRE greatly appreciated the assistance of stakeholders who provided data, participated in the two project workshops, and provided comments on the draft report.

• social-cost-of-road-crashes.pdf
  (2.05 MB)

This report uses an established modelling framework for forecasting the uptake of technologies that assist drivers and full vehicle automation in Australian light vehicles. Taking uncertainties into consideration, the report provides sensitivity analysis, based on several assumptions, to estimate the possible uptake of sales and fleet penetration till 2070. BITRE will maintain a watch on automated vehicles (AVs) as they are deployed and use the modelling framework to update its estimates when new information to inform forecasts becomes available.

• Forecasting uptake of driver assistance technologies in Australia [PDF: 7029 KB]

The National Cities Performance Framework (NCPF) was launched in 2017 with the commitment to conduct reviews every 3 years. This report covers the feedback received and the approach for the future of the NCPF. The conclusion of the NCPF review is that alternate departmental data and research products better meet the needs of stakeholders and that the Framework should be phased out. Targeted research will focus on issues of the highest priority to the government and cities’ stakeholders.