Answers,
not dashboards.
Place AU turns planning, performance and development data into short, decision-ready reports. Buy a Business Investment Report instantly. Council and developer briefs are scoped and delivered directly.
Answers aren't.
Still no answer.
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One self-serve report. Three consulting briefs.
Buy and download the Business Investment Report right now. Consulting briefs are scoped and delivered directly, typical turnaround 3-5 business days.
Business Investment Report
Demographic, income and workforce intelligence with named peer comparison, for any Australian small area (SA2) or LGA.
Council Performance Brief
Benchmark your council against state, metro and peer councils before a scrutiny hearing or strategy review.
Development Alignment Brief
Know what council will and won't approve at a site, before you go to exchange.
Housing Needs Assessment
A defensible evidence base on housing demand, supply gaps and delivery against state targets.
Fixed scope. Clear output. Ready to act.
For the self-serve report: choose your geography, pay once, download immediately. No account required.
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Search small areas (SA2) or councils (LGA) across every state and territory.
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Two decades of data experience, aimed at one problem.
Place AU converts open government data into structured, commercially useful reports for councils, developers, investors and businesses. It draws on sources such as the ABS Census, DataVic and other licensed government datasets, and delivers complete, defensible reports rather than raw data or dashboards.
The gap it fills is not access. Most of the data is already public. The gap is interpretation, understanding what the numbers actually mean for a site, a council or an investment decision. Founded by Dieter Krusic-Golub after two decades spent inside that exact problem, across data, analytics and enterprise SaaS.
Recent updates
Australia without the migrants
Modelling a 50,000, 100,000 and 150,000 cut to net overseas migration.
Data centres in Australia
Who really benefits, communities or big business, on the government data.
Victorian LGA workforce symbiosis
Where one council's surplus meets another's shortage.
Every sample is the real report.
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Back to main pageData Governance
Place AU reports are built exclusively on open government data. This page sets out how we source, license and govern that data.
Sourcing policy
All Place AU reports are built exclusively on open government data licensed for commercial reuse under Creative Commons and equivalent licences. No proprietary data, no commercial data subscriptions, no third-party aggregators. Our analysis is reproducible, our sources are publicly verifiable, and there are no licensing dependencies that affect what we can publish.
Primary sources
We draw on the Australian Bureau of Statistics (Census, ERP, Building Approvals, Business Register, Labour Force), DataVic and equivalent state open data portals (NSW, QLD, SA, WA), the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning, Homes Victoria, VCAT, Victoria in Future projections, Melbourne Water, the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council and Infrastructure Victoria. Every figure in a report can be traced back to a named, publicly available source.
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Back to main pageNews & Reports
Updates, trackers and published analysis from Place AU. Full pieces are published on LinkedIn or as standalone reports - this page links straight to them.
Interpretation,
not just data.
Place AU converts open government data into structured, commercially useful intelligence for Australian councils, developers and businesses. Built on two decades spent watching the same problem repeat: more data, better tools, still no clear answers.
The data was never the problem.
Place AU was founded by Dieter Krusic-Golub after two decades watching the same pattern repeat across every organisation he worked in. Planning teams overwhelmed by dashboards. Developers chasing permit signals across fragmented council systems. Investors trying to interpret population trends from disconnected spreadsheets. In every case, the raw data existed. What was missing was translation.
Most planning and investment data in Australia is already public. The ABS Census, DataVic, state planning departments and dozens of other government sources publish enormous amounts of it. What's missing is the step between the numbers and a decision: what does this actually mean for a site, a council or an investment case. That's the gap Place AU is built to close.
Rather than another dashboard or data portal, Place AU produces complete, defensible reports. Structured, sourced and ready to act on, without a subscription or a training session required to use them.
Four things we don't compromise on.
The same standards apply whether it's a A$149 small area report or a scoped council engagement.
01Retrieve first, explain second
Every figure is pulled from government data before any narrative is written. AI is used strictly for interpretation, never to generate numbers.
02Government data only
No commercial data providers, no proprietary panels, no estimates dressed up as facts. Every figure traces to a named public source.
03National by default
Coverage spans 2,473 small areas (SA2) and 546 LGAs across every state and territory, not a single metro area.
04Reproducible and transparent
Sources and vintages are stated in every report. Nothing is a black box, and nothing depends on a licensing arrangement we can't disclose.
Two decades across data, analytics and advisory.
Place AU is shaped by two decades spent working directly inside the problem it now solves, across legal and financial data licensing, ratings methodology, commercial strategy, geospatial platforms and demographic forecasting for local government.
That range matters more than any single role. Financial data taught what happens when sourcing discipline is treated as non-negotiable. Geospatial platforms taught how to make boundary-accurate data usable, not just available. Local government demographic work taught what councils actually need from a report, not what's easiest to publish. Place AU is what that combination looks like applied to Australian planning and investment data.
What governs every report.
Accuracy over completeness
A shorter, correct report beats a longer one padded with estimates. If a figure can't be sourced, it doesn't go in.
No proprietary dependencies
Every source is publicly available and licensed for commercial reuse. Nothing depends on a data subscription that could disappear.
Plain English, always
A report should be usable by a councillor, a developer and an investor without a glossary. Clarity is a design constraint, not an afterthought.
Every source is named and public.
The full sourcing policy and primary source list is on the Data Governance page.
See what Place AU can tell you about a place.
See all products →Business Investment
Report
A data-driven investment brief for anyone deciding where to open, expand or invest. Demographics, income, workforce, industry concentration and a named peer comparison for any Australian small area (SA2) or LGA, generated in under a minute.
Every figure sourced. Every source named.
Nineteen sections in the report, grouped below. Not a data dump. A structured read built to answer one question: is this location worth backing, and why.
01What the evidence shows
The findings that carry weight, each stated with the figure behind it and how the area compares to areas of similar size and profile.
02Position at a glance
Population, median household income, unemployment, participation and socio-economic percentile, each tagged Measured or Derived.
03Structural and market peers
Two separate peer sets. Structural peers share size and socio-economic profile. Market peers share catchment characteristics. Both are named, not averaged.
04Demographic profile
Age structure, household size, dependency ratios and country of birth, with what each implies for demand.
05Labour market and skills
Participation, unemployment, qualification levels and occupational mix drawn from Census 2021.
06Economic base
Employment by industry with location quotients, showing which sectors are over or under represented against the state pattern and by how many jobs.
07Housing and tenure
Tenure split, rent to income and mortgage to income ratios, and what they say about household financial headroom.
08Population trajectory
Recorded population change and the components behind it, with growth stated as not published where the series does not cover the area.
09Position within the district
Where the area ranks against its immediate neighbours on population, density and age structure. LGA reports carry a small area analysis instead, profiling every SA2 inside the council.
10SWOT and assessment
Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, then a direct read on what the evidence supports.
11What this report cannot tell you
The questions the data does not answer, stated plainly rather than glossed over.
12Cross source reconciliation
Where two government sources disagree on the same measure, both figures are shown with the discrepancy explained.
13Sources, vintages and provenance
Every figure carries its source and release. A count of measured against derived figures appears in the report header.
Boundaries first, then figures.
The area you select resolves to official ABS ASGS 2021 geometry before a single number is pulled, so the catchment you are shown is the catchment the ABS publishes against. Figures are retrieved and validated before any narrative is written.
- Geography
- ABS ASGS 2021, resolved to SA2 and LGA
- Sources
- ABS Census, Building Approvals, Data by Region
- Vintage
- Stated against every figure
Named sources, stated vintage.
No commercial providers and no proprietary panels. Every figure carries the source it came from and the year it was published, so a reviewer can go and check it.
The samples are the real reports.
Not stripped-down previews. The actual output, full length, real ABS figures. Kew - West is a small area report, Mitchell Shire is an LGA report. What you order is what you get.
View the Kew - West small area sample →View the Mitchell Shire LGA sample →Before you order
How current is the data?
Every report states the vintage of every figure it uses. Core demographic data is ABS Census 2021, refreshed with current-year ERP, Building Approvals and labour force releases where available.
What's the difference between suburb and LGA reports?
A small area report covers one ABS Statistical Area Level 2, roughly suburb scale. An LGA report covers the whole council area and profiles every small area inside it, which is what you want when comparing opportunity across a council.
Can I get this for a geography outside Victoria?
Yes. Coverage is national, across 2,473 small areas (SA2) and 546 LGAs in every state and territory.
What format do I get?
Both a print-ready PDF and an editable Word document, delivered instantly and also emailed with a 7-day download link.
Is this a substitute for professional advice?
No. It's decision-support: a structured, sourced starting point. For site-specific due diligence, pair it with our Development Alignment Brief or independent advice.
Pick a geography. Get your answer in under a minute.
Order a Business Investment Report →Council Performance
Brief
An executive brief that benchmarks your council against state, metro and peer councils using independent government data. Built for scrutiny hearings, strategy reviews and councillor briefings.
Eight sections. Every signal sourced.
Not a repeat of what your council already publishes. A read on what independent government data shows that internal reporting tends to smooth over.
01Executive summary
The three or four signals that matter most, ranked and stated plainly up front.
02Community satisfaction
Multi-year Community Satisfaction Survey trend against metro and state averages, broken down by service area, with survey participation disclosed.
03Planning system performance
Decision speed and statutory compliance benchmarked against named peer councils, with standard and VicSmart applications reported separately against the cohort rather than blended into one figure.
04Financial sustainability
Headline surplus vs adjusted underlying result, rates concentration and grant income structure.
05Peer benchmarking
Named comparator councils, not anonymised averages, so the gap is concrete. Selection criteria published, and the set can be changed at scoping.
06Planning authority and pipeline erosion
How much of the pipeline still sits with your council. Ministerial determinations, activity centre controls and the codified assessment pathways that have narrowed statutory discretion.
07Target setting under the 2026-27 framework
Where each mandatory LGPRF target would land at cohort median, at state median and on your own trend, before you adopt one.
08Management implications
What each signal means for councillors and management, ranked by priority, with the questions a councillor can ask officers.
Benchmarks you can check.
Peer councils are named, not anonymised, and selected on published classification rather than convenience. You can verify every comparison against the same public source we used.
- Comparison set
- Named peers, selection criteria disclosed
- Sources
- CSS, PPARS, LGPRF, VAGO
- Gaps
- Named where an indicator is not published
- Scoring
- No composite index. Position within a named set, never a rank across all councils
- Excluded
- No commercial data provider. Government sources only
Public record, not our numbers.
Every indicator is one a council already reports publicly. We assemble and compare, we do not produce a figure of our own and present it as fact.
The Boroondara sample is the real brief.
Not a stripped-down preview. The actual output, full length, real government data. What you commission is what you get.
View the Boroondara sample →Every indicator in the brief carries its source, the period it covers and its release date, set out in a currency table on the first page.
Before you commission a brief
How is this different to what our council already publishes?
Council reporting is often accurate but framed conservatively. This brief pulls the same or adjacent government datasets and surfaces the multi-year trend and peer comparison that internal reporting tends to smooth over.
Can this be used publicly or at a council meeting?
Yes. Every figure is sourced from public government data, so the brief can be tabled, quoted or referenced without disclosure issues.
How many peer councils are compared?
Typically 3-5 named comparator councils, chosen on published cohort classification and comparable profile rather than a broad anonymised average. One caveat worth knowing before you commission: participation in the 2026 Community Satisfaction Survey fell to 38 of 79 councils, from 56 in 2025, so a named peer may not appear in the current survey. Where that happens we hold the comparison at the most recent year both councils appear in and say so, rather than comparing across different years.
Where does the data come from, and what do you exclude?
Government sources only. Community Satisfaction Survey, the Local Government Performance Reporting Framework full data set, your audited annual report and performance statement, planning permit activity reporting, the ministerial permits register and VAGO. We use no commercial data provider and no proprietary panel, which specifically excludes CoreLogic, REMPLAN, SQM Research, .id and equivalent sources. Where a figure cannot be obtained from a government source we report it as unavailable rather than substituting one.
Do you score or rank our council?
No. We publish no composite index and no overall ranking. A single score hides where the gap actually sits, the measures have no common denominator, and the publisher of the underlying performance data releases it on the condition it is not used to produce simplistic league tables of councils. You get position within a named comparison set, measure by measure, with the council variation commentary carried alongside each figure.
Is this available outside Victoria?
Our depth is currently Victorian local government. Interstate councils are taken on request, scoped to the equivalent state reporting frameworks.
Get a benchmarked read on your council's performance.
Tell us about your council →Development Alignment
Brief
A site-focused brief for developers, consultants and landowners covering planning controls, permit signals and a plain-English read on what council will and won't approve, before you go to exchange.
Six sections. Every control sourced.
Not a legal opinion. A structured read on what the site can realistically support, and what to resolve before you lodge.
01Site controls & zoning
Zoning, height controls and schedule requirements affecting the site and immediate context.
02Overlay & heritage exposure
Heritage, character, flood and other overlays that shape what can be built and how.
03Recent permit activity
Approval and refusal rates for the local area over the past several years.
04VCAT outcome trend
Appeal rates and council's track record at VCAT for comparable proposals nearby.
05Issues & evidence gaps
What's likely to be contested, ranked by severity, and what evidence resolves it.
06Plain-English alignment view
A direct read on the realistic pathway for the site, before you commit capital.
Controls before conclusions.
Zoning, overlays and the relevant schedules are read from the planning scheme itself, then tested against how the responsible authority has actually decided comparable applications.
- Controls
- Planning scheme, zones, overlays, schedules
- Behaviour
- Permit history and VCAT outcomes
- Limits
- Where a control cannot be verified, it is disclosed
Straight from the scheme.
Controls come from the planning scheme and the responsible authority, not from a third party summary of them. Where a source is unavailable, the brief says so.
The Kew sample is the real brief.
Not a stripped-down preview. The actual output, full length, real planning and VCAT data. What you commission is what you get.
View the Kew sample →Before you commission a brief
Is this a substitute for a planning consultant or legal advice?
No. It's a sourced, structured starting point for due diligence. For lodgement-ready documentation, you'll still need a town planner, heritage consultant or legal advice specific to the site.
How current is the permit and VCAT data?
Planning scheme data is checked against VicPlan at time of preparation. Permit and VCAT figures are the most recent published datasets, with the source and date stated in the brief.
Can this be used before I make an offer?
Yes, that's the intended use. It's built to inform due diligence before exchange, not after.
Is this available outside Victoria?
Our depth is currently Victorian planning schemes. Interstate sites are taken on request, scoped to the equivalent state planning framework.
Know what council will approve before you exchange.
Tell us about your site →Housing Needs
Assessment
Council-focused analysis of housing demand, supply gaps, affordability and delivery against state housing targets, built as a defensible evidence base for strategy and submissions.
Six sections. Every figure sourced.
Built as a defensible evidence base, not a summary. Every target, gap and projection traces to a named government source.
01LGA overview & key indicators
Population, dwellings, social housing stock and headline housing cost context.
02Demographic & population analysis
Age profile shift and projected growth against Victoria in Future projections.
03Supply & affordability
Building approvals run-rate, price-to-income gap and rental affordability by income quintile.
04State housing target assessment
Current delivery pace measured against the confirmed state target and infill requirement.
05Small area (SA2) evidence layer
Need and constraint evidence for each small area inside the council, used to direct effort. State targets are set at council level and are not subdivided below it, so no small area is given a target of its own.
06Evidence requirements
What still needs to be commissioned to make the submission fully defensible.
Measured against the target.
Delivery is assessed against the confirmed state housing target for your LGA, not against a projection we produced. Where a parameter cannot be sourced it is described as a disclosed parameter rather than an estimate.
- Target
- Plan for Victoria 2051, as published
- Delivery
- ABS Building Approvals, current run rate
- Disclosure
- Assumptions named, not embedded
Targets as published.
The state target, the approvals record and the population base are all taken as published. Nothing is smoothed, rebased or reweighted to make delivery look closer.
The Boroondara sample is the real assessment.
Not a stripped-down preview. The actual output, full length, real government data. What you commission is what you get.
View the Boroondara sample →Before you commission an assessment
Is the housing target figure current?
Yes. Every target cited is checked against the final, confirmed Plan for Victoria figures, not superseded draft numbers, with the source and date stated in the assessment.
Can this be used in a formal council submission?
Yes. It's built as a defensible evidence base with named, traceable government sources throughout, suitable for strategy documents and formal submissions.
What geography levels are covered?
LGA level as standard, with SA2 and suburb-level breakdowns available for the areas that matter most to your strategy.
Is this available outside Victoria?
Our depth is currently Victorian housing targets and DTP data. Interstate LGAs are taken on request, scoped to the equivalent state housing framework.
Build a defensible evidence base for your housing strategy.
Tell us about your LGA →Find the right area for your business, backed by government data.
Tell us what you are opening. Business Match classifies it against the ANZSIC 2006 industry structure, then scores every SA2 and every LGA in your state on seven weighted factors built from ABS data. Pick a catchment, click any area, see how it scores and why.
What are you opening?
How Business Match works
- Classification. What you type is matched against an index of ANZSIC 2006 (Revision 2.0) industries with plain English synonyms and tolerance for typos. Consumer and service industries resolve to a four digit ANZSIC class. Agriculture, mining, manufacturing, utilities and wholesale resolve to a two digit subdivision, because those class codes could not be independently confirmed and a coarser correct code beats a precise wrong one. Every result is labelled as a class or a subdivision so you can see which you have.
- Seven scored factors. Resident population and annual growth (ABS Regional Population). Household spending capacity, measured as median equivalised total household income (ABS Data by Region Income theme, Census 2021 basis). Economic resources (ABS SEIFA 2021 Index of Economic Resources). Target demographic fit (ABS Census 2021 age structure, matched to the age groups your industry serves). Industry presence, the count of businesses in your ANZSIC division per 1,000 residents (ABS Counts of Australian Businesses, via the Data by Region Economy and industry theme). Transport access, the share of dwellings with no motor vehicle (ABS Census 2021).
- Scoring. Each factor is converted to a national percentile rank across every area in Australia, multiplied by a weighting for your industry, then summed to a score out of 100. A rank of 80 means the area sits above 80 percent of areas nationally on that measure. Percentile ranking is used rather than min-max scaling so a single extreme area cannot flatten the rest, and so a score means the same thing this week as it did last week. The weightings are a documented design choice. The figures underneath them are always real ABS data.
- Business counts are published by ANZSIC division, not class. The ABS does not publish small area business counts at four digit class level. Your class rolls up to its division for the industry presence factor, and the result card names the division it rolled up to. Class level competitor counts at suburb scale would have to be modelled, so we do not report them.
- Business density, where shown, is per square kilometre. Dividing businesses by resident population makes every CBD look extraordinary and every growth corridor look empty, because CBDs hold few residents and enormous commercial floorspace. Brisbane City sits near 646 businesses per 1,000 residents on that measure and a growth corridor sits near 40, which tells you the area is a CBD and nothing else. Per square kilometre measures precinct intensity instead. It is reported as context and is not one of the seven scored factors.
- Areas that are not places are removed. The ASGS includes special purpose areas such as Migratory - Offshore - Shipping and No usual address, which exist so records with no fixed location can be coded somewhere. They have no residents and are excluded before anything is ranked, so they cannot appear in results or distort the national percentile distribution.
- Thin records are not scored. An area needs a resident population, at least four factors with data and most of the weighting backed by real figures. Below that it is reported as insufficient data rather than given a score, because an area scored on two factors is not comparable to one scored on seven.
- Suppression is disclosed, not filled. The ABS randomly adjusts small business counts and sets some small cells to zero to protect confidentiality. A zero in a small area may be a true zero or a suppressed value and the two cannot be told apart. Where that applies we say so on the result rather than quietly substituting a number.
- Travel time catchments are modelled, not measured. Walk and drive catchments are computed over the OpenStreetMap road network by OpenRouteService and estimate reachability. Straight line radius uses real boundary centroids and no external service. Every population, dwelling and business figure reported inside a catchment remains ABS sourced.
- Vintages are stated, never averaged. Each figure carries the year of the release it came from. Census measures are 2021, business counts and building approvals follow the latest Data by Region release, and population follows the latest Regional Population release. Where a source is a year behind another, we show both years rather than blending them.
- Not a substitute for a report. Business Match is a starting signal built from free public data. Site viability also turns on rent, lease terms, floorplate, exposure, parking, zoning and the competitor immediately next door.
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