I would like to propose that the Decadal plan consider:
- Making statistician a professional occupation in the public service ie people occupying such positions will need to have certain (yet to be specified) qualifications, eg you cannot be a medical officer without an MBBS. Associated with this should be an accompanying improvement in employment conditions.
- A realignment of the university curriculum on statistics to make it more relevant to (i) official statistics production agencies like the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and (ii) to the analysis/interpretation for informed decision making for Policy Departments.
- How to develop more rounded skills in statistical graduates eg project management, communication, influencing etc.