New Zealand's Government Statistician Mark Sowden said he was "really pleased" with engagement in the latest census.
Warriors’ tickets, time delays and no fines. None of these were enough to muster engagement for the 2023 census in Hawke’s Bay.
New insight from NZ’s government statistician revealed perhaps more could have been done, with 21 per cent of people in the region failing to fill in their forms.
The collection period for census in the region officially ended on June 30, and despite significantly lower engagement than the rest of the country, statistician for the Government Mark Sowden said he was “really pleased” with engagement.
A 100 per cent return rate in Hawke’s Bay was based on the region’s population data from June 30, 2022. Stats NZ said this figure was subject to change as data became clearer.
“We ended up with what we call a 79 per cent return rate, which is pretty good compared to the overall national return rate of between 89 and 91 per cent given what was going on in Hawke’s Bay at the time,” he told Hawke’s Bay Today.
Not everyone in Hawke’s Bay was pleased the census went ahead in the region after Cyclone Gabrielle.
Napier Mayor Kirsten Wise originally said she was “pretty disappointed’” that the collection still went ahead at all, believing it would have “long-term implications” for the city due to not having accurate data to assist with panning.
“Given the circumstances facing our community at that time, delaying the census would have been the best option,” she told Hawke’s Bay Today.
She said a good turnout would always help the council make better decisions for Napier’s future and reiterated that census information was just one of many information sources that were used to plan for things such as housing needs and community facilities.
Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst also said these initial figures were disappointing and acknowledged it would also be disappointing for Stats NZ and the taskforce active in the region.
“Despite the time extension and other incentives offered there’s no doubt that the ongoing impact of the cyclone will have made it difficult to engage people in the census in this region when they had so much else to contend with, particularly those in our hardest hit areas,” she said.
“It’s hard to say in hindsight whether it would have made much difference delaying the census in our area, as the recovery is ongoing and will take a long time.”
Sowden admitted there were still things that needed improving, such as the engagement rate for Māori.
“While the overall return rate was sitting at around 79 per cent, the Māori return rate was 61 per cent.”
He said a major focus going forward would be thinking about how to best relate to those in lower-income areas.
Sowden also said the delay to enter flood-hit communities could have been later, but also said Stats NZ stood by the decision to give a two-month delay and keep the census going.
“A third of the forms we got were during that two-month extension,” he said.
“We possibly could have been better to have gone in a little bit later even and give people time to recover, but in order to get a successful census nationwide we had to have a certain close-off period.”
And was giving away free Warriors tickets a success in Sowden’s eyes? Stats NZ received 932 Individual Forms and 249 Dwelling Forms at events linked to the promotion with the Warriors in Napier.
“It was hugely successful because we were able to connect with priority response groups who were under-represented in the 2018 Census, such as Māori and Pasifika families, particularly men and young people,” Sowden said.
Despite the challenges, he said he was thankful for the support of the local community for their support and that feedback had been that working with the community had helped “bring people together”.
“We went out in an integrated way. We were often delivering food and census forms at the same time so that ability to be able to integrate is something I want to try and replicate when we do Census 2028.”
Full census data is expected to be released by the end of May 2024.
Sowden told the Herald this month that Stats NZ would review its whole suite of data collections and publications in order to decide the future of the census by the middle of next year.
“It’s getting harder to get responses from New Zealanders, certainly getting more expensive to get responses from New Zealanders, and yet there’s an increase in demand for faster, more granular data.”
Stats NZ and the census process are no strangers to controversy around low engagement and failed campaigns.
University of Auckland statistician Andrew Sporle is quoted saying that the 2018 census was “a bit of a disaster” after it was found the survey failed to count one in seven New Zealanders.
Government Statistician at the time Liz MacPherson quit in 2019, saying she took full responsibility for issues identified in an independent report.
Mitchell Hageman joined Hawke’s Bay Today in late January. From his Napier base, he writes regularly on social issues, arts and culture, and the community.