Census collectors do an important job helping collect accurate information about New Zealand's people. Photo / John Stone
Census collectors visiting homes across New Zealand will be carrying panic alarms as a safety measure against a post-Covid rise in anti-government feeling.
The alarms can alert security teams should any of the more than 3000 census collectors, who are currently being hired to work the eight weeks from the end of January through to April, feel threatened while door knocking.
It’s understood the move is in response to a risk of doorstep antagonism. An applicant said recruitment agencies told them increased safety measures were “in anticipation of huge anti-government sentiment”.
Professor Paul Spoonley, chair of the Centre of Research Excellence for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism, said trust in government had been falling among a segment of society since the start of the Covid pandemic.
That polarisation would be further tested by the March 7 census and 2023 General Election.
“There is a big test for government-community relations this year,” Spoonley said.
“2023 is going to be a moment - whether it is census or the election - to see whether that antipathy is going to continue at the level we saw in 2022.”
Held every five years, the census has been running since 1851 and is one of New Zealand’s most important studies.
It is the only survey of the country’s entire population. It reveals how many people live in New Zealand, and its results are used by iwi, businesses and government to help deliver better services, such as schools, hospitals, roads and public transport.
Yet it has also historically been met with scepticism by some who don’t wish to have their details recorded by government.
In the past, there have been instances of collectors being threatened and having dogs set on them.
Spoonley fears collectors could face increased antagonism this year as Census Day comes one year after the nation was shocked by the violent end to anti-government protests in front of Parliament.
Protestors last February spent three weeks occupying Parliament’s lawn as they complained about Covid vaccine mandates and lockdowns. The protest ended on March 2 as some hurled bricks and other objects at riot police.
Now some groups are planning one-year anniversary events this March to commemorate the protests - a time when census collectors will also be on the streets door knocking.
Politicians are another group to have expressed fears for their safety in the current political climate.
Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson last year said politicians might have to increasingly take official security teams with them, especially when meeting the public during the upcoming General Election campaign trail.
“We are heading into an election campaign that will be undertaken in an atmosphere that is different from the ones I’ve done before,” he said last September.
“When I travel around New Zealand now, I come across people who are yelling threats and abuse at me in such a way that I now have to think about whether I have DPS [Diplomatic Protection Squad police] with me.”
Robertson said on one occasion protesters blocked his entry to Whangārei’s airport.
“They were screaming and yelling at me that I was a paedophile and other revolting things.”
Simon Mason, deputy chief executive of Census and Collections Operations, from Stats NZ - which is responsible for the census - said the health and safety of everyone working on the census was “of the utmost importance”.
“All field staff will carry a tablet with them which includes a ‘lone worker’ mobile app,” he said.
“This app contains a panic alarm which, when activated, alerts a security company who can then respond to the person who activated the alarm.”
If security teams are unable to reach the person whose alarm is set off, they can contact the worker’s team leader, area manager or police “to determine the appropriate action”.
“Satellite devices are also available for when a person is out of cellular range during their shift, so their whereabouts will be known at all times,” Mason said.
Census collectors additionally receive training that covers “such things as situational awareness, dogs, de-escalation, crossing the doorstep, staying safe and Covid-19″.
They can also “work with a buddy if they feel the need to”.
Stats NZ said it aimed to employ people from each community so that collectors delivering and retrieving census materials were, as much as possible, locals who knew many of those they were meeting.
Advertisements for the census collectors jobs stated workers may visit houses, campsites, hospitals and residential facilities among other locations to deliver and collect forms.
They may also have to work weekends and late afternoons so that they have a better chance of catching people when they are home.
In some cases, they may go inside houses to help people complete their forms and can expect to meet and talk with people from diverse cultures, age groups and socio-economic backgrounds.
Chris Kumeroa, a former SAS soldier and current managing director of consultants Global Risk Consulting, said he expected census collectors to face a more challenging environment than in the past.
One of the results of recent global polarisation that has been helped along by social media and the pandemic was that some people had become more fervent and combative in their political views, he said.
A good risk management system to protect census collectors would involve combining historical lessons together with updating on-the-ground reporting of incidents by collectors as they occur.
He said management teams should have already compiled data on past census collection incidents to analyse which geographic locations or communities these had taken place in.
That could be combined with reports from current census collectors whenever they encountered problems so risk management strategies could be updated.
It was also important to monitor intelligence about whether there were groups using misinformation or other techniques to interfere with or skew the data being collected, Kumeroa said.
Overall, critical census risks included aggressive dogs, anti-social behaviour or abuse, historical and emerging potential violence, actions by anti-state and misinformation groups and extreme weather or natural disasters.
Spoonley believed there were two key goals to helping the collection process go smoothly.
“One is that we absolutely need to make the collection of data as safe as possible for those collecting the data,” he said.
“The second is we’ve really got to make sure that communities understand how significant and important the census is.”