In the Child Protection NMDS, this data element is collected a minimum of three times:

• the suburb/town/locality name where the child was living at the time of the notification;
• the full name of the general locality containing the specific residential address of the child immediately prior to their entry into their first ever out-of-home care placement; and
• the full name of the general locality containing the specific address of the out-of-home care placement.

In the Child Protection NMDS, this data element is collected a minimum of three times:

• the suburb/town/locality name where the child was living at the time of the notification;
• the full name of the general locality containing the specific residential address of the child immediately prior to their entry into their first ever out-of-home care placement; and
• the full name of the general locality containing the specific address of the out-of-home care placement.

In the Child Protection NMDS, this data element is collected a minimum of three times:

• the suburb/town/locality name where the child was living at the time of the contact;
• the full name of the general locality containing the specific residential address of the child immediately prior to their entry into their first ever out-of-home care placement; and
• the full name of the general locality containing the specific address of the out-of-home care placement.

In the Child Protection NMDS, this data element is collected a minimum of three times:

• the suburb/town/locality name where the child was living at the time of the contact;
• the full name of the general locality containing the specific residential address of the child immediately prior to their entry into their first ever out-of-home care placement; and
• the full name of the general locality containing the specific address of the out-of-home care placement.

In the Children's Services NMDS, this data element is only relevant to children who receive in-home child care services. It refers to the child's in-home address. It is used in conjunction with the data element Postcode—Australian (person).

For data collection using Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI), the suggested question is:

What is your suburb, town or community?

(Single response)

Enter town/suburb/community.

For data collection using Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI), the suggested question is:

What is your suburb, town or community?

(Single response)

Enter town/suburb/community.

In the Home and Community Care MDS, this data element refers to the full name of the suburb/town/locality in which the Care Recipient lives whilst receiving HACC services.

In conjunction with the data element Postcode, the data element Suburb/town/locality name is included in the HACC MDS as an alternative means of reporting information about the geographic location of the residence of a HACC client. The preferred standard for reporting this information is by using a statistical local area (SLA) in conjunction with a state/territory code (see Australian state/territory identifier). However, as some HACC agencies may have difficulty allocating SLA codes to the residential locations of their clients without more computerised assistance than is currently available to them, agencies are given the option of reporting this information by using the alternative standard of Postcode  plus Suburb/town/locality name.

 
Reporting requirements:

The agency should report the most recent Suburb/town/locality name recorded for the client.

Information provided by the agency about the client’s Suburb/town/locality name will be considered to be at least as recent as the Date of last update reported for the person. This is in line with the request that agencies assess and update the information they have about a person’s Suburb/town/locality name at the beginning of each HACC service episode as well as at subsequent assessments/re-assessments within each HACC service episode.
 
The HACC MDS Version 2.0 does not include all data elements for full Address information. A complete implementation of Address, including the related data elements, is currently under development in co-ordination with Standards Australia, ABS, the National Health Data Committee and the National Community Services Data Committee. Once national standards are developed, the HACC MDS will take these standards into account for future versions of the HACC MDS.

Guide for use - Detention file

A Suburb/Town/Locality may be a town, city, suburb or commonly used location name such as a large agricultural property or Aboriginal community. The name should be spelt correctly and consistently and should not be a juvenile justice detention facility.

Enter ‘Unknown’ where the locality name or geographic area is not known.

Enter ‘No fixed address’ where the young person has no fixed address or is homeless.

This data element refers to the suburb/town/locality name of the client's last known home address prior to coming under the supervision or case management of the agency.

This is to be recorded for each juvenile justice client on entry to each juvenile justice episode.
A question to be asked of juvenile justice clients may be ‘where do you live?' or ‘what was your most recent home address?’
A juvenile justice remand/detention centre should not be recorded as the last known home address. The data item refers to last known home address of the client prior to being held in a centre or on supervision.

In the Notifications, investigations and substantiations (NIS) cluster the data element refers to the suburb/town/locality name where the child was living at the time of the notification.

In the SAAP NMDS, the suburb or town location of the client's last home is recorded. This is defined as the location where the client last lived in a home in which they were safe, for which they had security of tenure, and that was adequate in terms of the amenities or resources necessary for living.

In the Specialist Homelessness Services NMDS, this data element is reported twice, for:

• where the person lived one week before the first service contact (the Service episode—episode start date, DDMMYYYY); and
• where the person lived the last time they had a permanent place to live.

In the Specialist Homelessness Services NMDS, this data element is reported twice, for:

• where the person lived one week before the first service contact (the Service episode—episode start date, DDMMYYYY); and
• where the person lived the last time they had a permanent place to live.