This issue contains four articles:

• Adopting the Composite Regression Estimator for the Quarterly Business

Indicator Survey
• Improving Estimates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Life
Expectancies
• Shaping the Future of ABS Household Surveys - Building Better Resilience
and Reducing Costs
• A Systematic Evaluation of Large Language Models for Enhanced
Enterprise Search

Adopting the Composite Regression Estimator for

the Quarterly Business Indicator Survey
The latest release of the Quarterly Business Indicator Survey (QBIS) results has
been compiled using an improved estimation method, known as the composite
regression estimator (CRE). This method, which was previously
described in Methodological News issue aligns with the ABS’ broader priorities
of reducing provider burden and making greater use of administrative data
sources.

The composite regression estimation technique serves to reduce sampling error

via two primary objectives, namely (1) use administrative tax data to reduce
sampling error of level estimates; and (2) exploit the overlap in consecutive
samples to reduce sampling error of movement estimates.

• Objective 1

The Quarterly Business Indicator Survey (QBIS) aims to estimate private sector
sales, wages, profits, and inventories. To achieve this, the ABS surveys a sample
of businesses and assigns weights to each reported business’ response to reach
estimates of the total population values. The key data items that QBIS publishes
exhibit strong correlations with Business Activity Statement (BAS) Turnover and
Wages data from the ATO, which we access for all businesses in scope of QBIS.
By benchmarking the sampled data against the administrative records, we gain
insights into the sample’s characteristics. An optimisation algorithm is used to
derive weights such that the weighted sample estimates of the administrative
data are consistent with the known population totals of the administrative data.
This adjusts for any lack of representativeness in the sample and enables us to
produce more precise level estimates.