Census changes really about hiding the bleeding gums of NZs poverty wounds
Traditional Census scrapped as Government moves to new data collection approach
The days of trying to get every New Zealander to fill out a Census form are over.
Minister of Statistics Dr Shane Reti announced today that Stats NZ will move to an admin-data-first Census.
This means using data the Government has already collected when trying to assemble datasets that include every New Zealanders.
For example, instead of asking your income on a Census form, Stats NZ could ask Inland Revenue how much you earn.
Reti also announced that from 2027, Stats NZ will deliver monthly, rather than quarterly, inflation figures.
We’ve already seen this game from this Government.
Hide, redefine, move thresholds.
They did it with Emergency Housing.
They changed the thresholds and kicked everyone out who didn’t meet the new definitions and hid the impact on homelessness.
They did it to Pay Parity by changing thresholds to destroy all those workers wage aspirations and they are busily redefining new sanctions for those on welfare.
Every stage they gloss over the pain, hide the impact of their draconian policy and whitewash everything.
That is why the Census is being axed, to hide the bleeding gums of our inequality and gloss over our poverty pain.
Once upon a time an Aunty would knock on your door and keep knocking until you filled out your census form. They were smart Aunties and they knew how to make sure you did it.
That was expensive and it became more difficult as social cohesion imploded over Covid.
The great idea the boffins came up with was doing it all online and the moment that Aunty wasn’t knocking on your door to ensure you filled out your Census form, the rest of us went, ‘stuff it’ because we were sick of having the state in our faces.
Rather then rebuild, rather than spend the amount needed to fix it, this cost cutting Government have decided to dump it altogether in favour of other state agents to fill in the details themselves.
This will leave all those who strive to have nothing to do with those existing state agents (including those the State is actively throwing off welfare and state houses) with zero representation.
This will see vast pockets of the underclass with no representative data to provide the infrastructural planning that the census builds.
This move will undercount the poverty and build vast inequalities based on that undercount.
We will gloss over the wounds of our poverty with a cost saving brainfart.
This is what we is now. This is what we have become.
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Reti was demoted because of his abject failure in health( it hasn’t improved under boy Wonder). Now he’s in charge of the worst and most corrupt CoC in history. Hiding data to hide the atrocities this CoC has created isn’t democratic, it’s simply corrupt. Where will the savings from the census go to now, Farmers, Business, right wing media like the Herald, Newstalk ZB shill or maybe saved until the next election tax bribe that like the last one went nowhere.
I dare say the ability to hide from the public the real extent of mass immigration is also a factor in this decision .
I attended a lecture by Len Cook a few years ago.
Len Cook was head of statistics New Zealand.
He spoke of the way past governments used statistical information to guide policy. For example, increasing numbers of unmarried mothers led to the Domestic Purposes Benefit to enable women to independently raise their children. State housing, school and hospital construction provided on a basis of need.
He hinted that, about the time he resigned, there was a change in this.
National Party politicians said which statistics they wanted and implied it was his job to provide them.
What will happen with no census and administrators tasked with finding statistical information that is acceptable to Governments which want to cut public spending?
The suspicion must be that this government is discontinuing the census so that they can implement any mad, extremist economic ideas fed to them by the NZ Initiative, without the harm these ideas cause ever being fully understood. That’s a justified suspicion given their record, and if the alternatives for data-gathering they are proposing turn out to be inadequate, then it will be correct.
Yes, something will fill the vacuum.
What’s that saying It is very hard to get a change in opinion or decision from someone whose salary depends upon retaining that thing.’ So set up a belief on something, with the stats to back it, and then pour concrete on the status quo..quo..quo….
Census response rates have been declining for decades. And in a time of relatively rapid demographic change, it’s verging on the foolhardy to rely on an almost-instantly-out-of-date five-yearly snapshot.
New Zealand needs to urgently update and upgrade it’s administrative and bureaucratic infrastructure to allow the collection and analysis of population data to occur in near-real time.
Caveat emptor!
Bleeding gums – is that why Dr Shane Reti is on the job?
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2506/S00098/modernising-new-zealands-data-system.htm
“People’s information needs are changing and today’s announcements ensure we keep delivering data that improves lives today and for generations to come,” Acting Stats NZ Chief Executive and Government Statistician Mary Craig said….
“As New Zealand faces widespread and long-term social, economic, environmental, and technological change, people’s need for information is growing exponentially.
“These changes will help ensure Stats NZ continues to adapt and provide high-quality information that supports New Zealand’s economic and social wellbeing,” Craig said…
“From 2030, key New Zealand census data and statistics will be produced every year, in a cost-effective and sustainable way.
“By tapping into information New Zealanders have already provided, we will deliver more relevant, useful, and timely data to help inform quality planning and decision making.”
Surveys will continue to play an important role, with a new annual survey asking census-type questions of a small percentage of the population….
[Sounds like targeted spying – does Palantir or ? come into this. The main census was supposed to be anonymous. This is more like the cat sitting outside the mouse escape hole in wait.]
When are men going to start requesting equal employment opportunities at upper levels seeing this is the second female statistician? Or is it a job with limited lustre?
Sounds like it will give govts, this sort in particular, the perfect way to hide statistics and then fail to plan for future needs. ‘Oh, nobody told us we’d need these new schools!!!! But it means we still have that money for our donor’s requirements.’
Another excellent example of the Emperor’s New Clothes which is their specialty, after all. They persist with not wanting to be told what is inconvenient and expensive to know and how stupid that always makes them look. As if it were possible for them to look any more stupid.
Also, another example of NZ going backwards.
Forget the people who refuse to fill out the forms, extrapolate.