How every figure is made.

The summary at the top of each page

The first sentences on a suburb page name where that area differs most from the rest of its state: house price, three-bedroom rent, median age, the share of children under 15, and the morning train time to the CBD. Each figure is compared with the median across all areas in the same state that publish it, and the two or three largest differences are shown. They are differences in a number only - higher is not better and lower is not worse.

Family-Fit score

Every input is a free, already-published government figure for the area's SA2 (the ABS statistical area behind each suburb page), mapped onto 0–100 by the fixed thresholds below, then weighted. Inputs with no published data for an area are dropped and the rest rescaled to 100 - never scored as zero. A score is only shown where inputs worth at least 60% of the weight have data. We publish this method in full; the point of the score is that you can check it.

Each suburb page shows every input's own figure, its 0–100 result and the points it adds, next to the median for the state, so the number is never the whole story.

Childcare ratings

NQS is the National Quality Standard, the government benchmark ACECQA rates every service against - from "Working Towards" (below benchmark) up through "Meeting", "Exceeding" and "Excellent". Services are matched to a suburb by name on the ACECQA register, so verify locations before visiting. Ratings are reassessed periodically, not on a fixed schedule - a rating over 3 years old is flagged so you know to check for anything more recent. Where no service matches an area by name, that is a gap in the match, not evidence that there is no childcare.

Housing costs

The housing-cost figures are the ABS's own mortgage and rent affordability indicators from the 2021 Census: the share of households paying more than 30% of income on housing. The 30% line is the ABS's own long-standing threshold, and these are their published figures, not our calculation.

The two figures cover different households - one counts only households paying off a mortgage, the other only households renting - so they are shown separately and must not be added or averaged together. Income is the ABS's imputed household income; their published percentage also counts households that did not state a repayment or rent, which is why it does not equal the two counts divided by each other. The state marker is the state average weighted by household base across the areas that report each figure, and is context only. Housing costs have moved since 2021. Not financial advice.

Socio-economic profile (SEIFA)

IRSAD (the Index of Relative Socio-economic Advantage and Disadvantage) ranks each SA2 against every other area in Australia on income, education, occupation and other Census indicators, then groups them into ten equal-sized deciles. It is a relative comparison of the whole area - not a safety, liveability, or school-quality measure - and it says nothing about any individual household. Source: ABS SEIFA 2021, IRSAD index (SA2).

Who lives here (Census 2021)

Census figures describe the area's ABS Statistical Area 2 (SA2) at the 2021 Census. SA2 boundaries don't always equal suburb boundaries. The grey marker on each bar is the state average, population-weighted across the SA2s in the state, and is shown for context only - it is not a target or a pass mark. The ABS does not publish every breakdown for smaller areas, so some groups may be missing.

Age bands are the ABS's own age groups, combined only where whole groups sit side by side - nothing is split or estimated inside a group. The shares cover everyone but don't total exactly 100%: the ABS adjusts small counts slightly to protect privacy. The ABS publishes only the five largest birthplace, ancestry and language communities per area, so a name missing from a list didn't rank in the top five - not that nobody from it lives there. People report up to two ancestries, so ancestry shares total more than 100%. "Established by 2016" means a community was already a comparable share of the population at the 2016 Census; "growing since 2016" means its share has grown substantially since then. Both are facts about population change, not a ranking of one community against another.

Change across three Censuses

A single census tells you what an area is like now; three tell you which way it has been heading. These are the 2011, 2016 and 2021 Censuses from the ABS Census Time Series Profile, all reported on 2021 SA2 boundaries, so changes are not caused by boundary redraws. The dashed line is the median across the areas we profile in the state, counting only those that report the same measure at all three Censuses - a typical area to read against, not a state total and not a target.

Each chart carries its own axis, drawn to fit its own numbers, so compare the labelled values rather than the steepness of one chart against another. Every figure is an ABS published count, or a share of two of them - there is no index or score, and a direction is not a verdict: a rising median age or a falling share of children is simply a change, not a better or worse suburb. The ABS adjusts small counts slightly to protect confidentiality, so treat small movements as noise.

Dwelling approvals

An approval is not a building. These are dwellings a council approved; some are never built, and the ones that are usually take years, so this is a signal of what is planned around a suburb, not a count of homes standing in it. It is also not a forecast - nothing is projected forward. The total covers every dwelling approved, public and private; the houses and apartments figures are the private-sector split the ABS publishes, and the two do not add up to the total wherever public housing was approved. Figures are for the whole statistical area, which usually covers more than one suburb, and are counts only - never divided by land area or population, and never combined into a score. Source: ABS Data by Region (cat. 1410.0), from ABS Building Approvals, Australia (cat. 8731.0), CC BY 4.0.

Amenities, train times and hospitals

Amenity counts are of features tagged in OpenStreetMap inside the area's SA2 boundary, not a register of everything that exists. Community mapping is uneven, so a zero can mean "not mapped" rather than "not there", and a shop or clinic just over the boundary won't appear even if it is the one you'd use. GPs are general practices only - hospitals and specialist clinics are not counted. Where we hold a state timetable feed (Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia), train stations are the ones a scheduled passenger train stops at. Areas differ hugely in size, so we never turn these counts into a rate, index or score. Each count is shown next to the median count across the state's areas - context, not a target.

Train to the city is the median scheduled weekday morning-peak travel time to the central-city terminus, from the closest station to the middle of the area. The distance to that station is a straight line, not a walking route, and the figure is the train leg only - it excludes getting to the station and any change at the other end. NSW, South Australia and the ACT publish their timetable data behind a free developer account we have not yet set up, so no travel time is shown there.

Nearest emergency department is the straight-line distance from the middle of the area to the nearest hospital tagged with an emergency department in OpenStreetMap - not a drive time, and not necessarily the closest by road. General emergency departments treat children as well as adults. In an emergency call 000; do not plan around this figure.

Hazards and planning checks

Every line is an official published record for the area - we don't rate, score or rank any of them, and a line we can't answer says so. Hazard lines republish the extent of an official overlay across the whole area - they are not a risk rating, hazard score or insurance assessment, and we compute none. A specific address inside the area may or may not be affected: check the current planning scheme and your insurer. Not financial or insurance advice.

The traffic line names the roads mapped inside the area - it is not a noise measurement or a decibel estimate, and we compute neither: what a specific home hears depends on distance, traffic volume, speed, barriers and terrain, which no free dataset publishes. The heritage, aircraft-noise and land-contamination lines are planning controls rather than hazards, and apply property by property - the contamination line flags land an audit must check before it is used for housing or childcare, never land found to be contaminated. The acid-sulfate line covers coastal and estuarine land only, because that is where those soils form - inland, "none mapped" means outside the mapped zone, not a soil test. We don't yet cover EPA notices, mine subsidence, landslide or coastal erosion - where a line is missing, treat it as not checked rather than clear.