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.

They already know what we’re earning, the IRD has that. They already know how many babies are being born and how many of us are dying and how many of us getting hitched - Births, Deaths and Marriages has that.

They already know how many of us are leaving the country and coming into the country, that’s collected too. They know how many one, two or three bedroom houses there are, that’s all collected already. 

And yet - they were asking us to tell them that all again on the census form. Which made the exercise a giant waste of money. The last one cost $325 million and the next one was going to cost $400 million.
 
Now I accept that there is information we will lose. Because as far as I know, no Government department collects information on how many languages you speak or what your sexuality is or what your first language is or how many people live in your house.
 
So yes, by scrapping the census, we will end up with an incomplete set of data.

But we already have an incomplete set of data because of the huge numbers of us that didn’t fill it in. In 2018, we didn’t count one in six Kiwis. That's not complete at all.
 
So either way, we won't know anything. Except one way was going to cost us $400 million.

Scrapping the census was way overdue.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, do you know what I'm not going to miss?
The census. I mean, if there was anything that showed
how bad government can be at embracing technology, it was
the census, wasn't it. I mean, this is a time
where governments collect huge amounts of electronic data about you,
and then they asked you to fill out a paper
form and send it in and just tell them all
that stuff all over again. They already know what you're earning.

(00:21):
ID has that. They already know how many babies we're having,
how many of us are dying, how many of us
are getting hitched, birth deaths and marriages have that. They
already know how many of us are leaving the country,
how many of us are coming into the country. They
collect that too. They know how many one to three
bedroom houses are out there that's being collected. And yet
they were asking us to tell them that all over

(00:42):
again every five years. That made that all exercise a
giant waste of money, didn't it? When you think that
they already had the data and then they asked you
to repeat it. Wasn't that a giant waste of money?
The last one cost us three hundred and twenty five
million dollars the next one was going to cost US
four hundred million dollars. Now, I accept that there is
information that we will lose by scrapping the census, because

(01:04):
as far as I know, no government department collects information
on how many languages you speak, or what your sexuality is,
or what your first language is, or how many people
live in your house. We're not going to be able
to know that stuff is easily now, right, So I
accept that there will be some stuff that's incomplete. But
we already have an incomplete set of data, don't we,
because the huge numbers of us, because of rather the

(01:26):
huge numbers of us who haven't filled it in. In
twenty eighteen, we didn't count one in six kiwis. That's
not complete at all. So either way, we're not going
to know everything except one way was going to cost
US four hundred million dollars, wasn't it. Scrapping the census
was long overdue.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
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