Senior Data Analyst

Melbourne-based analytics, data products and applied AI grounded in 10+ years of commercial experience.

Melbourne, Australia

Public Data & Demographics.

All insights

Australian public data is excellent and almost never ready to compare. Suburb and LGA boundaries move between Census editions, classifications change, and a model that looks precise at suburb level can be badly wrong once you add it back up. Most of what's here builds on one piece of groundwork, harmonising the 2011, 2016 and 2021 Census onto consistent boundaries, which sits underneath both the LGA Language Explorer and the city reports below.

Public Data & Demographics05 / Articles
Melbourne street at dusk with a tram, people walking and diners at an outdoor table01 / Public Data & DemographicsMay 2026Melbourne Is Becoming an Evening and Weekend City

Two years of City of Melbourne pedestrian-sensor data show foot traffic recovering unevenly: strongest at the residential fringe, after dark, and around the events calendar, while cafe and restaurant seating still clusters around the old daytime pattern.

Read article ⟶Illustrated Brisbane cityscape following the river through changing neighbourhoods02 / Public Data & DemographicsApr 2026What Three Census Editions Reveal About Brisbane's Demographic Shift

The third city in the series. Brisbane's demographic profile is structurally different from the southern capitals, and the data shows a city in transition.

Read article ⟶Illustrated Sydney cityscape arranged around the harbour and its changing neighbourhoods03 / Public Data & DemographicsApr 2026What Three Census Editions Reveal About Sydney's Demographic Shift

The second city in the multi-city census series. Sydney's migration footprint is different from Melbourne's in ways the data makes clear - from China's sustained lead in birthplace to Arabic as the standout language.

Read article ⟶Illustrated Melbourne cityscape showing successive rings of demographic change04 / Public Data & DemographicsApr 2026What Three Census Editions Reveal About Melbourne's Demographic Shift

This is the first in a multi-city Census series. Melbourne is diversifying quickly: India has overtaken England as the largest overseas-born population, while Christianity remained narrowly ahead of secular identification in 2021 and the linear projection places secular identification ahead by 2026.

Read article ⟶Map of Australia built from stacked boundary layers, with charts and small groups of people around it05 / Public Data & DemographicsMar 2026How I Harmonised ABS Census Data Across Changing Suburb and LGA Boundaries

Australian census geography changes over time, which makes suburb and LGA trend analysis much harder than it looks. Here's how I used SA1 data, ABS allocation files, and correspondence files to build a consistent 2011–2021 time series and a 2026 projection.

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