Productivity Commission Recommendations: 7.1 and 7.2

The Productivity Commission recommended establishing a new form of national data asset, a 'National Interest Dataset'. These would be datasets generating significant community-wide benefits.

'Wider access to high value datasets across and between sectors—public, private, non-for-profit and academia—and jurisdictions has the capacity to deliver considerable benefits. Those high value datasets that may be used to generate substantial benefits across a broad swathe of the Australian population are considered to be of national interest.'

Productivity Commission 2017, Data Availability and Use Final Report

The Australian Government's response

The Australian Government will establish a framework to identify those datasets whose availability and use will generate significant community-wide benefits. This will complement existing work under Australia’s Open Government Partnership National Action Plan 2016-2018 to release a high-value dataset framework.

The Government will consider the best way to facilitate sharing and use of these datasets through the legislative consultation process.