Assistant Minister for Digital Transformation Angus Taylor yesterday released survey results on the use of the G-NAF (Geocoded National Address File).
“Through the Government’s open data agenda, we are working hard to make high-value data available for use and re-use at no cost to the public,” Assistant Minister Taylor said.
“The G-NAF is one of the most requested datasets in Australia. It’s being used by insurers in digital mapping so customers can work out the risk of water leaks, theft and bush fires, based on the location of their property.
“A tech team in a recent Hackathon has used the G-NAF to map new housing and city growth. And there are some outstanding ways of using the National Map, which incorporates G-NAF datasets. We use the National Map in my office to help with telecommunications inquiries.” For the uninitiated, G-NAF is a database of all the physical addresses in Australia.
As there is no single organisation that is responsible for assigning and collating addresses in Australia, G-NAF is built from addresses supplied by ten contributors including the land agencies in each state and territory of Australia.
As each contributor collects and stores addresses differently, the G-NAF production process involves independently examining and validating every candidate address, then textual and spatial matching.
Addresses from different sources found to be identical are merged into a single G-NAF record with feature level metadata capturing its linage and quality.
Through this process over 30 million contributed addresses are distilled into over 13.5 million G-NAF addresses.
Since the G-NAF was made publicly available (from February 2016), it has been downloaded 3,600 times, compared to only 180 downloads over the 18 months when it was under restricted licence.
From responses received to a recent survey:
- 97% of end users rated G-NAF data as ‘good’ to ‘very high’ quality.
- 75% have achieved efficiencies and/or productivity growth due to accessing the data.
- 47% have introduced new operational processes using the data.
- 41% have developed new goods or services using the data.
“Aussie Broadband has been able to use the open G-NAF data to help customers quickly and accurately check if NBN is available at their address. It’s been incredibly useful,” Mr. John Reisinger, Acting Managing Director, Aussie Broadband said.
Produced by PSMA Australia in collaboration with government agencies, the G-NAF contains more than 13 million geocoded physical addresses from across Australia. It was released as an initiative under the National Innovation and Science Agenda.
