**19. Conclusions**

Australia has a robust and reliable set of health statistics. This is the result of many decades of national governance cooperation, resourcing, and effort. The ongoing commitment of resources and collaboration among stakeholders continues to be essential to ensure a robust evidence base to inform policy and practice, based on nationally consistent data standards, and to underpin research efforts, into the future. Some specific potential improvements have been highlighted, and the full potential of data linkage has ye<sup>t</sup> to be achieved.

People provide information about themselves and their health in many settings and are often unaware that this information provides input to health statistics which, in turn, improves health and health services [47]. Respecting individuals' data remains at the heart of the health statistics effort, and using it as well as possible is a key responsibility for the statistical community.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, R.M., N.F. and J.G.; investigation, R.M., N.F., J.G.; writing— review and editing, R.M., N.F., J.G. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
