Ex-serving ADF members' income and sources of income

The results of the analyses in this report are based, in part, on data supplied to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) under the Taxation Administration Act 1953, A New Tax System (Australian Business Number) Act 1999, Australian Border Force Act 2015, Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999, Paid Parental Leave Act 2010 and/or the Student Assistance Act 1973. Such data may only be used for the purpose of administering the Census and Statistics Act 1905 or performance of functions of the ABS as set out in section 6 of the Australian Bureau of Statistics Act 1975. No individual information collected under the Census and Statistics Act 1905 is provided back to custodians for administrative or regulatory purposes. Any discussion of data limitations or weaknesses is in the context of using the data for statistical purposes and is not related to the ability of the data to support core operational requirements of the Australian Taxation Office, the Australian Business Register, the Department of Social Services and/or the Department of Home Affairs.

Legislative requirements to ensure privacy and secrecy of these data have been followed. For access to MADIP data under section 16A of the Australian Bureau of Statistics Act 1975 or enabled by section 15 of the Census and Statistics (Information Release and Access) Determination 2018, source data are de-identified and so data about specific individuals has not been viewed in conducting this analysis. In accordance with the Census and Statistics Act 1905, results have been treated where necessary to ensure that they are not likely to enable identification of a particular person or organisation.

This report examines income support payments in addition to other sources of income. A range of payments by Services Australia and Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) are considered income support payments (DVA n.d.; Services Australia 2022). For this report, income support payments are limited only to those paid by Services Australia and do not include payments from DVA. Care needs to be taken when interpreting results, and findings should not be generalised to whole-of-government income support.