Pages

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Benjamin Macintyre: Census trouble


Hey, you. Yeah, you. Did you fill out your census form? I expect you did.

Everyone fills out their census form. It is our sacred duty as proud New Zealanders to inform the government of our address, occupation, and favourite colour.

I expect you did your duty? Of course you did.

What was that sorry? You… didn’t? WHAT?

How could you? We sent you so many letters!

We gave you a hard deadline to fill out the census form. Then we gave you another hard deadline. Then another one.

When that didn’t work, we thought we might sweeten the deal. We knocked on your door asking you to kindly fill out your form. After all, if you’re unwilling to engage with the government, surely the government rocking up to your house unannounced will change your mind.

But some people still didn’t fill out their form. So, we had to get nasty.

If you weren’t affected by Cyclone Gabrielle (an inventive way to get out of census duty, we must admit) then we told you you’d be fined $2000 by the end of June.

Well, guess what? June has been and gone (as has July, August, September and most of October) and some of you still haven’t returned your forms! This is unacceptable!

You leave us no choice. We’re going to prosecute you now for everything you have, assuming everything you have adds up to exactly $2000.

Well, we were going to. But now we can’t.

It turns out that when we sent you all those letters you didn’t read, we accidentally didn’t tell you all the legal jargon we were supposed to tell you. As a result, we’re not allowed to prosecute you.

You might say that such a basic and obvious error is a damning indictment of the entire census-taking process.

To this we say, “please fill out your census form.”

So, you got away with not filling out your census. Enjoy it while it lasts.

But we’ll regroup, figure out what went wrong, and catch you next time.

Eventually, the census will get you. You cannot escape.

Because remember, at the end of the day, we don’t know where you live.

Benjamin Macintyre is a Research Assistant at The New Zealand Initiative. This article was first published HERE

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is our patriot duty to not fill out any census from our government. Also not to pay any income tax to a corporation masquerading as our government which then uses it to pay interest on money which they borrowed from globalist central banks to squander at our expense.

DeeM said...

Just like with voting and everything else, actually, there will always be a smallish contingent who don't do things you want them to do, no matter what you threaten them with...even when you are so incompetent that your threats are meaningless.

So, in the case of the census, bad luck for them. Because their households (and we know which ones they're going to be) won't be represented so they might miss out on all the long-term planning and provision which happens after a census.

They've only themselves to blame, but they'll blame everyone else because that's what they do.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek said...

I'm still busy trying to work out what to answer for the questions on gender, will submit the form when I have cracked it.

Robert Arthur said...

With questions about imagined gender, mould in houses etc it was difficult to take seriously. Mny questions had the prospect of being used against. except for those on single wage the income figures must in many cases be wildly inaccurate.Certainly in the case of the cash occupations.
incredibly, despite inducements, and number details being very much in their interests, many maori apparently could not muster the energy or ability to submit.

Anonymous said...

Electoral commission (this election) and stats NZ (census) are incompetent. Just one of numerous govt entities that are.

Anonymous said...

I strongly believe its our civic duty to fill it in but this year I didn't because the stupid 'gender' instead of sex question is a ridiculous form of compelled speech as in compelled to agree to something that doesn't exist:

https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/when-asked-what-are-your-pronouns