Census no more

Former Government Statistician Len Cook writes:

The Government Statistician must agree with key users, population experts and statisticians on a process for Identifying the full range of due diligence critical for the proposed census change. My own view is that the Royal Society should be funded to lead an independent review of the scientific integrity and validity of what is proposed.

An independent review is a very good idea, but sadly the Royal Society no longer has the credibility to do it. I’d have Professor Thomas Lumley lead the independent review.

The other countries with which we compare ourselves (Australia, Canada, UK) have no commitment to changing their next census to anything similar to the proposed New Zealand model. 

The countries which do use the records collected by the state in its health, welfare, taxation, policing and enforcement activities all began with a compulsory population registration process (Israel, the Netherlands, the Nordic Countries). 

This should cause some hesitation about the new direction.

We need to know the effect of changing the way that people are counted in population statistics.

An enumeration-based census enables coherence and consistency within and between responses because of the common reporting period. Population-wide administrative data will not usually refer to the same period for all individuals.

I can understand why the Government said no to running a census that was projected to cost $400 million.

But the answer doesn’t have to be not having a census. The better question would be why does it cost $80 a person to do what is basically a poll of the entire population?

The last Australian census cost only $23 a person.

Costa Rica managed a census for $2 million!