Ending the New Zealand census as we’ve known it will save money – it was “no longer financially viable”, according to Statistics Minister Shane Reti – but the true cost of those savings could be considerable.
Of course, it’s no secret the two previous censuses raised major questions about the quality of census data and the process. In 2018, an untested experiment with online returns, and a reduced workforce in the field, saw “an unacceptably low response rate”.
