The Albanese Government has reappointed Dr David Gruen AO as the full‑time Australian Statistician to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) for a further five years, beginning on 11 December 2024.
Dr Gruen has served as the Australian Statistician since 2019, providing outstanding leadership of the ABS through a unique period in history.
Dr Gruen is one of Australia’s best and most experienced economists and has a distinguished record of public service. He previously served as Deputy Secretary in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and in the Department of the Treasury.
The professional manner in which Dr Gruen has led the ABS meant that during the COVID‑19 pandemic the ABS provided rapid statistics to guide policy responses during a period of unprecedented economic uncertainty, and again after the pandemic to assess how it changed Australia’s economy and society.
He is a distinguished, innovative and respected leader who has led the agency to streamline data collection and harness existing data sources, improving the quality, reliability and timeliness of statistics, which is helping to better inform important public policy issues.
The ABS has curated major longitudinal data assets, including the Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA) and Business Longitudinal Analysis Data Environment (BLADE) datasets, which are being used extensively by researchers in government and academia, including research that has informed the work of the Competition Taskforce.
Alongside his role as Australian Statistician, Dr Gruen was appointed by the Australian Public Service Commissioner as the inaugural Head of Data Profession.
The Data Professional Stream ensures the entire APS workforce has the data capabilities to harness the growth in the availability and value of data across the public service.
The ABS is Australia’s national statistical agency and provides trusted, independent, timely and relevant data, statistics and insights to inform Government policy.