Australia is moving two hundred and fifty metres to the north
east While most people will not feel the earth move, census
clients may have heard about the change to mapping systems and
want to know how it will affect Census mapping products. In the
mid 1990s Australia's mapping agencies agreed to adopt a new
Geocentric Datum for Australia (GDA94) and to implement this new
model of the earth in their mapping systems by the year 2000.
Implementation is slightly behind schedule but some States have
changed to the new datum and others will change in the next
year. The adoption of GDA94 will make Australian mapping
directly compatible with the Global Positioning System (GPS)
which is widely used for professional and recreational
navigation. It will mean, however, that the coordinates or
latitudes and longitudes of all Australian mapping will change
by about 250 metres to the north east. All ABS spatial data such
as the Master Spatial Database (MSD), used for Census Collection
District design and mapping, and the R