Senseless census?

The current New Zealand government announced recently that it’s scrapping New Zealand’s five-yearly census. The government says it’s doing this because of rising costs, which, it thinks, can’t be justified when much of the information the census surveys can be extracted from data collected from various government agencies. Are they right? Or will their focus on cost alone cost New Zealanders in other ways?

In announcing the change, Statistics Minister Shane Reti described the change as being a”sharpened focus on quality economic, population stats”. Beginning in 2030, the new system will end the traditional nationwide census and will adopt a new approach “using administrative data, supported by a smaller annual survey and targeted data collection.” Reti claimed this “will save time and money while delivering more timely insights into New Zealand’s population,” but will it really? I think they’re overlooking the importance of what isn’t collected by anything except the census.

The government plans to use what’s called “administrative data”, which is basically statistics collected by various government agencies every day, things like tax records, education enrolments, health data, and other government data. in fact, Stats NZ uses administrative data for reports between censuses. Also, some of that sort of data is NOT collected by the current census, and so, it’s true that routinely including administrative data will give Parliament and the government of the day a better idea of the state of the country—or, at least, programmes central government manages.

However, the census also collects data no one esle does, including sociological and cultural data, such as, languages spoken in the home, religious affiliation and non-affiliation, and, most recently, sexual orientation and gender identity. Administrative data may sometimes hint at such data, but there’s no reason for them to collect it. To be blunt, it’s not merely about taxation or performance of the economy, so government agencies don’t need, and so, don’t collect such data. This kind of data provides a fuller picture of who, exactly, New Zealanders are, things beyond empoyment, tax, student debt, or any other things government departments collect information on.

Censuses provide the data that helps elected governments to work out not just where government spending is needed, but also WHY the money needs to be spent. Census data also gives local government insights into where new parks, public libraries, and various local improvements will be needed. Basically, getting the fullest, most complete picture of the people helps elected representatives to better represent the people who put them in power, as well as all the people who didn’t for whatever reason, like, for example, because they’re under 18.

Continuing the financial argument, Reti said, “Relying solely on a nationwide census day is no longer financially viable. In 2013, the census cost $104 million. In 2023, costs had risen astronomically to $325 million and the next was expected to come in at $400 million over five years [emphasis added]. I have absolutely no idea what that “over five years” thing means, and neither the press release nor media coverage have explained it—at all. Speaking of unexplained things, the announcement says that the census will end in 2030, but the next census was due to be in 2028—two years before the announced end of the census, so what’s going on? Are we not doing the 2028 census? If not, why isn’t the end date 2028 instead of 2030? The press release doesn’t say, but I saw a journalist’s comment (sadly, I didn’t bookmark it…) that we may have done our last census. Does the current government know what's up?

Still, despite Reti’s focus on cost alone, and even ignoring his weird, unexplained conflicting timeline, he was correct about one thing when he said, “successive censuses have been beset with issues or failed to meet expectations.” Absolutely true. It’s also absolutely true that we don’t know if the current government ever explored ways to improve the census rather than killing it off, because they don’t seem to have ever mentioned doing that, or having decided not to do that.

I have huge concerns about whether any of the data after the census ends will be complete, or even as useful. Stats NZ is the agency that currently conducts the census and will presumably collate the administrative data and the results from the “smaller annual survey and targeted data collection” the current government claims will fill in the missing data from the cancelled census. Will Stats NZ actually even be ABLE to get useful information about the needs of minority and vulnerable communities through the those planned targeted special surveys? Asking people who already mistrust government to do the census is a huge ask right now, but getting them to do a special survey most people don’t get asked to do sounds like it’s destined to fail. In fact, this non-compliance could make the “errors” in recent censuses seem very minor.

Conservative governments always look to cut costs, and so, services provided by government. In general, those who are obsessed with the cost of everything seldom understand the true value of anything. The current coalition government has the numbers to push through the required legislation, though if they lose the 2026 election, the new government could repeal the changes—or, not. That, too, is unknown territory.

To me, this issue isn’t merely about money, but also about the quality of the data, and I’m not convinced that what the current government is proposing with provide quality data that elected representatives in Parliament and local government alike need. As a middle ground, it seems to me that switching to a decennial census (like the USA has) could allow the collection of census data to periodically correct the data collected by other means, while still saving money. Maybe in time, as systems improve, the census wouldn’t be needed, but I’m not convinced that time is now.

Word nerd footnote: The formal term for a census conducted once every five years is to call it a “quinquennial census”. I can't remember ever hearing anyone using the term quinquennial, either for that or to refer to something that last five years (its other meaning). But I avoided using it in this post—until this footnote.