DSS Payments by Commonwealth Electoral Division for National Map

Department of Social Services payment data is aggregated by 2024 Commonwealth Electoral Division for use in National Map. All cell values are rounded to the nearest 5 to protect privacy, with values from 1 to 7 rounded to 5, which may cause non-additivity in totals. The dataset is provided in a CSV-GEO-AU format and was last updated on 2026-05-15.

Use Cases

• Map the spatial distribution of social service payments based on electoral division boundaries.
• Analyze correlations between welfare recipient demographics and electoral regions based on referenced quarterly demographic data.
• Assess the impact of privacy-preserving data rounding on aggregate statistical analysis.
• Integrate government payment data with other geospatial layers in the National Map platform.

Strengths

• Data is explicitly formatted for machine readability and integration with the National Map platform.
• Privacy protection is implemented via rounding to the nearest 5 for all cells.
• License is clearly stated as CC-BY-2.5, facilitating reuse.
• Last update timestamp is precise: 2026-05-15 01:32:00.022635.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Privacy rounding (values 1-7 to 5) introduces non-additivity, complicating the recalculation of totals.

Provenance

Source

Department of Social Services, Australia.

Collection Method

Aggregated from departmental payment records, with privacy-preserving rounding applied.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-15 01:32:00.022635; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia, by 2024 Commonwealth Electoral Division.