Rhema Vaithianathan: AUT Professor on 5 year census getting scrapped

The traditional census as we know it is coming to an end.

Stats NZ is moving to a system using Government collected admin-data, saying the current five yearly Census is financially unsustainable.

Census-style questions will still be asked in much smaller annual surveys looking at a small fraction of the population.

Auckland University of Technology Professor Rhema Vaithianathan told Ryan Bridge the price of census is eye-watering.

She says admin data also allows information to be released yearly, which is more useful than waiting five to find out what's happening.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gone.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
The days of the five year census yesterday it was
scrapped by the government and instead agencies will use data
they already collect, like ird numbers that will be provided
by smaller scale surveys. Rema vy THEA. Nathan is the
director of the Center for Social Data Analytics at Analytics
at aut And that's with me this morning. Remember, good morning,
good morning man. Did we need the census?

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Well, not at that price, my goodness, only twenty five
million dollars to do a census of two million households.
My eyes were watering when I saw the number. So
that is incredibly expensive and I think that that needs
to be looked at, frankly. But yeah, given the price,

(00:45):
given its every five years, and you know, we can
use that beIN data now to do an annual census,
and that's much more useful than waiting, you know, for
five years to find out what's happening. So I think
this is a really good move.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Lots of other countries have already done this, haven't they.
They're using administrative data, and lots of other countries would
only do it every ten years anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Not five exactly. And you know, it's it's kind of
really people think, oh, the census is accurate. Well, it's
accurate for you know, the twenty fifth of March twenty
twenty three, and then you know what, people left the country,
other people were born, you know, people moved house, and
it's not accurate anymore. So you know, the degree of

(01:29):
accuracy is how close to in time you are to
the snapshot of your population. So I think that moving
to admin data that can give us real time information.
You know, I sort of call the census as if
my bank gives me annual bank balances for me to
decide on what I'm going to buy, and I'm going

(01:50):
to you know what I earn. It's I think it's
time has come.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Appreciate your input this morning. That's remor viy thea Nathan
Who's with aut For more.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
From Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
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