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Wednesday, July 2, 2025

David Farrar: Census no more


Former Government Statistician Len Cook writes:

The Government Statistician must agree with key users, population experts and statisticians on a process for Identifying the full range of due diligence critical for the proposed census change. My own view is that the Royal Society should be funded to lead an independent review of the scientific integrity and validity of what is proposed.
 
An independent review is a very good idea, but sadly the Royal Society no longer has the credibility to do it. I’d have Professor Thomas Lumley lead the independent review.

The other countries with which we compare ourselves (Australia, Canada, UK) have no commitment to changing their next census to anything similar to the proposed New Zealand model.

The countries which do use the records collected by the state in its health, welfare, taxation, policing and enforcement activities all began with a compulsory population registration process (Israel, the Netherlands, the Nordic Countries).

This should cause some hesitation about the new direction.

We need to know the effect of changing the way that people are counted in population statistics.

An enumeration-based census enables coherence and consistency within and between responses because of the common reporting period. Population-wide administrative data will not usually refer to the same period for all individuals.

I can understand why the Government said no to running a census that was projected to cost $400 million.

But the answer doesn’t have to be not having a census. The better question would be why does it cost $80 a person to do what is basically a poll of the entire population?

The last Australian census cost only $23 a person.

Costa Rica managed a census for $2 million!

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

National Identity Number by the backdoor.

Changes to the Data and Statistics Act allow for the linking of data. This is key, because it sanctions the creation of a persistent unique identifier that can track an individual in real -time through administration data.
What is the difference, between a persistent unique identifier and a national ID number? The ‘persistent unique identifier’ is the backdoor to achieve a national identity number. Stats don’t have overt legislation for a national identity number, so they are going behind our backs, linking info from the data they already have on us and making an ID for everyone, the same way they say they are not building a real-time statistical register.

One Register to Rule them All: what Stats NZ is planning behind closed doors.

https://bonnieflaws.substack.com/p/one-register-to-rule-them-all-what?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email