Nick Clark: The census that counts more by counting less

New Zealand has solved one of the great puzzles of modern government. A Bill currently before Parliament abolishes the census and declares its replacement to also be a census, only annual and therefore better.

Since the 1850s, this exercise required statisticians to ask every person in the country where they live, how many people they live with, what languages they speak, what faiths, if any, they observe, and much more. The results were invaluable but increasingly expensive.

The 2023 census cost $326 million, roughly $63 per person counted, assuming they were counted, which not all of them were.

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.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Scrapping the census was long overdue

You know what I’m not going to miss? The census.

If there anything that showed how bad Governments can be at embracing technology, it was the census. At a time when Governments collect huge amounts of electronic data about us, it seemed ridiculous that they were also asking us to fill out a paper form and send it in.

Mike's Minute: More of us are a part of the housing dream

Possibly my favourite stat from the Census was that home ownership is up.

Who would have thought?

Kerre Woodham: How do we get information we need if not the Census?

We need information. To create a functioning society, there's certain information that we need to know. How many of us there are in the country for starters. How old we all are, so we know where we need to build schools and what sort of aged care we might need in the future. Roads, public transport, all that sort of stuff depends on knowing where we all are, who we all are, where we work. So many questions and so many answers needed. And since 1851, we've been getting that information via the Census.