Australian Open Data

Stable All tiers

A single CKAN adapter covers all Australian government open data portals. Each portal is registered as its own system type but shares the same adapter implementation.

Authentication: None for public portals (API key optional for rate-limit increase) API reference: CKAN API

Tip

Try querying open government data through the Cross River Rail public preview - project datasets, infrastructure registers, and spatial data. When you’re ready to combine open data with your own contracts, sign up for Insights.

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Supported portals

Portal	System type
data.gov.au	DATA_GOV_AU
data.qld.gov.au	DATA_QLD_GOV_AU
data.nsw.gov.au	DATA_NSW_GOV_AU
data.vic.gov.au	DATA_VIC_GOV_AU
data.sa.gov.au	DATA_SA_GOV_AU
Generic CKAN	CKAN_PORTAL

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Supported resources

Resource	FETCH	LOOKUP
search_datasets	✓
get_dataset	✓	✓
datastore_query	✓
list_organizations	✓
list_groups	✓
Pinned datasets (dynamic)	✓

Pinned datasets are aliases you can configure per portal - frequently used datasets appear as named resources for easier targeting in workflows.

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Example queries via MCP

Once connected through the MCP server, you can ask Claude:

• “Search data.qld.gov.au for infrastructure project datasets in southeast Queensland.”
• “What road construction datasets are available on data.gov.au?”
• “Pull the latest construction industry employment data from the ABS dataset on data.gov.au.”
• “Find spatial datasets covering the Cunningham Highway corridor.”

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Security

Access type: Read-only (public data)

All CKAN portals expose publicly available government datasets. No private or organisation-specific data is involved. An API key is optional and only needed for higher rate limits on specific portals.

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Next steps

• MCP Server - connect Claude or ChatGPT to query government data portals directly
• AusTender - government procurement data
• ABR - business register lookups
• Sign up for Insights - combine government datasets with your uploaded contract and estimating data