Guides / how-to-connect-data-gov-au-api-australia

AU Federal gov

How to connect the data.gov.au API (CKAN)

Australian Government

data.gov.au is the federal open-data hub. It also harvests state and agency portals, so one search covers a lot of the country. Behind the site is a standard CKAN action API under https://data.gov.au/data/api/3/action/, and public reads need no key. A box check on 16 Oct 2026 counted 141,321 packages.

Search with package_search: q takes keywords (q=bushfire matched 902 packages), fq=res_format:CSV keeps only datasets that ship a CSV (9,795), and rows with start page through results. Each result lists its resources with direct download URLs and a license_id (often cc-by-4), so check the licence on each dataset rather than assuming one for the whole portal. organization_list lists publishers.

Harvested records also live on their home portal. For state-level work see DataVic CKAN, Queensland Open Data CKAN and Data.NSW CKAN.

Steps

  1. Find the base URL. Use https://data.gov.au/data/api/3/action/package_search — docs at https://data.gov.au/data/api/3/action/help_show?name=package_search.
  2. Auth. Catalogued as Open read — none for public read.
  3. Try an example request. 
    curl -s 'https://data.gov.au/data/api/3/action/package_search?rows=1'
  4. Licence. Unknown — not stated by the publisher. Read the publisher terms before production use.
  5. Agent notes. Federal harvest hub. Live 2026-08-23: 141,176 packages. Also Magda UI at data.gov.au.
Connect recipe
base
https://data.gov.au/data/api/3/action/package_search
docs
https://data.gov.au/data/api/3/action/help_show?name=package_search
protocol
CKAN
auth
Open read — none for public read
licence
Licence unclear
try
curl -s 'https://data.gov.au/data/api/3/action/package_search?rows=1'
checked
2026-10-15 · 200 OK · 888 ms

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