As of November 25, 2022 the number of COVID-19 cases in the Australian state of Victoria was at 40,482 people per 100,000 of the population. Since mid-2021, uncontained outbreaks in NSW and Victoria caused the government to move away from its former 'Covid zero' approach.

The economic impact of lockdown measures

In March of 2020, one survey showed that over 70 percent of Australians expected the economic outlook in Australia to get worse in the next three months. For most industries this prediction was correct, with the worst hit industries being hospitality, tourism, and gyms and fitness. However, some businesses flourished under the shift in pandemic consumer behavior with food delivery services, homewares and online gambling showing significant increases in consumption.

On September 30, 2020, there were 17 new reported confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia. Australia's daily new confirmed coronavirus cases peaked on July 30 with 746 new cases on that day. This was considered to be the second wave of coronavirus infections in Australia, with the first wave peaking at the end of March at 460 cases before dropping to less than 20 cases per day throughout May and most of June.

 A second wave

Australia’s second wave of coronavirus found its epicenter in Melbourne, after over a month of recording low numbers of national daily cases. Despite being primarily focused within a single state, clusters of coronavirus cases in Victoria soon pushed the daily number of recorded cases over that of the first wave, with well over double the number of deaths. As a result, the Victorian Government once again increased lockdown measures to limit movement and social interaction. At the same time the other states and territories closed or restricted movement across borders, with some of the strictest border closures taking place in Western Australian.

 Is Australia entering into a recession?

After narrowly avoiding a recession during the global financial crisis, by September 2020 Australia had recorded two consecutive quarters of economic decline, hailing the country’s first recession since 1991. This did not necessarily come as a surprise for many Australians who had already witnessed a rising unemployment rate throughout the second quarter of 2020 alongside ongoing restrictions on retail and hospitality trading. However, thanks to welfare initiatives like JobKeeper and a government stimulus payment supplementing many household incomes, the economic situation could have been much worse at this point.

Melbourne is widely known as one of the world’s great music cities, and has more live music venues per capita than any other city in the world (Melbourne Live Music Census Report 2017).

City of Melbourne is home to a large number of these venues and this dataset provides a list of dedicated live music venues, and other venues and spaces which present live music, in the municipality.

It should be noted that the criteria for a live music venue, as determined by the Melbourne Live Music Census Report 2017, is a venue which presents live music two nights per week minimum. The census also identified that on an annual basis, 44% of regular venues feature live music on four nights per week, 28% on five nights and 10% on seven nights. Additionally according to the census and associated venue survey responses, a live venue in Melbourne typically: - is a hotel or bar in the CBD or inner suburbs which has been operating for an average of 8 years and, in 50%+ of cases, presents live music four nights per week.

The City of Melbourne employs a contractor to perform traffic counts on roads throughout the municipality. The numbers of vehicles are recorded per hour and split into 12 categories based on the Austroads vehicle classification. Vehicle class 13 is used when the type of vehicle can’t be determined.

In the 2017/16 surveys all bikes, motorcycles and maximum speeds were captured. In the 2015 surveys not all surveys captured bikes, motorcycles and maximum speed. In the 2014 surveys no bikes, motorcycles or maximum speed were captured.

This data is designed to be joined to the road corridor data on road_segment and seg_id. Some records have more than one road segment this is because the survey crosses intersecting roads and the intersections have a road segment number. In the Road corridor table some road segments will have the same seg_id.

For a description of each field please see the attached data dictionary.

Known data issues: - 112 records had vehicle_class fields which contained the character '-'. This should value should be a 0 value.

The datafile, published by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) contains the composition and abundance of airborne pollen collected at the University of Melbourne campus at Parkville, Melbourne, Australia for the MAPCAH study. The data were collected between September 2009 and December 2011 as part of a research program looking at the relationship between airborne pollen and asthma exacerbations in children and adolescents (see Erbas et al. (2012) A case cross over design to examine the role of aeroallergens and respiratory viruses on childhood asthma requiring hospitalization; the MAPCAH study J. Biomet Biostat doi 21556180.s7-018). These data have been included as part of a study of the Australian Aerobiology working group (Haberle, Bowman, Newnham, Johnston, Beggs, Buters, Campbell, Erbas, Godwin, Green, Heute, Jaggard, Medek, Murray, Newbigin, Thibaudon, Vicendese, Williamson, Davies “The macroecology of airborne pollen in Australian and New Zealand urban areas” ). The September 2009-December 2011 pollen counts were performed using a Burkard 7-day recording volumetric trap (Burkard Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, UK). Airborne pollen grains were trapped on an adhesive (Dow Corning Sylgard 527 silicone dielectric gel) coated tape or a glass microscope slide by intake of air at a flow of 10 l min-1. A microscope slide was used between October and December and transparent plastic MelinexTM tape was used at other times. The glass slide was changed daily and tape changed on a weekly basis and cut into seven pieces, each representing a 24 hr period. The pieces of tape were then individually mounted on glass microscope slides. Pollen grains were stained with Calberla's stain and counted using a light microscope by randomly scanning the length of the tape (lengthwise traverse). The different types of pollen on the slide were identified using in-house materials and the daily concentration of each pollen type expressed as the average number of pollen grains m-3 of air for the preceding 24 hr period. For more information please visit the Australian Centre for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (ACEAS) Data Portal. Please note: AURIN has spatially enabled the original data, acquired via the ACEAS Data Portal with permission from TERN.

This dataset is a definitive view of native vegetation extent and condition across Melbourne’s VC68 urban growth areas and incomplete Precinct planning areas within the Melbourne Urban Growth Boundary, time-stamped as at 13 December 2012. The area covered by the timestamping dataset aligns with the extent of the Biodiversity Conservation Strategy (BCS) for Melbourne’s Growth Corridors (DSE 2012).

This dataset wholly replaces the previously released NV2011_TS_GA and includes the following changes: -inclusion of Number of Large and Very Large Trees in Surveyed remnant Patches -Remnant Patches have new Unique IDs to remedy issues in previous dataset

The dataset only provides a view of native vegetation within the extent outlined above. Where a parcel is partially within the extent, the view of native vegetation only applies to areas applicable within the BCS.