Urgent Debates — Statistics New Zealand—Resignation of Government Statistician and Report on Census 2018 Review

I call on the Hon Dr Nick Smith to move that the House take note of a matter of public importance.

I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.

This is, notably, the resignation of the Government Statistician and the damning report on Census 2018. It is official that last year’s census was a shambles, and it matters a great deal. We have tens of billions of dollars of money for health and education and other public services that relies on the census. We have crucial planning for infrastructure, for roading, for schools, for hospitals that depends on a reliable census. We have all sorts of public policy research that depends on the reliability of the census. And, of course, we have the setting of the number of Māori seats, the number of general seats, and the boundaries for electorates dependent on the census. So it is entirely appropriate that this House debates the report and the resignation on the worst census that has been conducted in New Zealand.

It is a basic fundamental job that simply involves counting New Zealanders. It’s been done since biblical times. In this country, we’ve done it regularly since 1851. And no amount of spin can hide the fact that over 800,000 New Zealanders were not counted. That is, one-in-seven New Zealanders did not participate in last year’s census, and for Māori and Pacific it was even worse with one-in-three New Zealanders not being counted in the census. And for all the window dressing and spin that we get from the Minister of Statistics that somehow this is the best census that’s ever been conducted, we on this side of the House say “Not good enough.” and we seek some accountability.

Now, the reliability of the census depends on a high level of participation. The last two censuses received a level of 95 percent. The target for this census was 94 percent. The fact that only 83 percent of New Zealanders filled out and completed a census really brings into serious doubt the reliability of the census with that huge hole.

National seeks three things in this debate. Firstly, we want an end of the charade, Minister. For 18 months, you’ve been dismissing concerns, Minister, about the census. You’ve said that it’s been the most successful census ever.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member should address the Chair.

It was not—this report brutally exposes the scale of the multiple failures that occurred and the complete lack of openness and transparency by the Government. Secondly, we want some accountability. The chief statistician has accepted some responsibility but we want the Minister to stop lashing out, to stop duck shoving, and to actually accept his share of the responsibility for the debacle that was Census 2018. And, thirdly, we want some reassurance that the lessons of that census have been learnt. We keep seeing these really basic errors from this Government, whether it be KiwiBuild, whether it be in terms of the Budget where basic confidential information is released, whether it’s the fiasco in the Department of Corrections, where the worst criminal in New Zealand history is able to spread his hate from letters behind bars.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member will resume his seat. This is a very narrow debate on the census and the Government Statistician’s resigning. It is an urgent debate and the member’s been going for five minutes now; he has 15. There’s no obligation to use it all, and if he can’t stay with the topic, then I will terminate his speech.

My point is this comes one after another after another of basic failures in public services by this Government, of which there is a pattern, of which the census is the latest failure.

The first concerns I had reported to me about the census were when major retirement homes in my community, in which there were over 200 homes, received a single census pack. I had long-experienced census field officers contacting my electorate office concerned about it all going to custard, and we had all over New Zealand media reporting experiences of people unable to get access to the 0800 numbers, unable to participate in the census. There were people from Kaitāia in the north to Bluff in the south who were being frustrated in their attempts to participate in the census, and, even more concerning, fieldworkers for the census were being told that they shouldn’t bother with long driveways in rural areas. And yet the Minister of Statistics repeatedly told the Parliament that it was all going swimmingly well. He told us that all the targets were being met and he dismissed concerns. Can I give one example. The Northland Age reported the census being a shambles. The Minister said that the Northland Age editor was wrong, that it was fake news, and that we shouldn’t believe what we see on social media.

What we saw in last week’s report was truly damning. It says that the census suffered from poor governance and leadership, that there was a lack of transparency and overly optimistic reports on how well the census was going, that there was a failure to elevate when things went wrong up to the appropriate levels of management, and that the project of delivering the census was flawed. At a very basic and practical level, the census failed because there was not the backup for those people who were not able to participate on an online basis. There were very basic errors where the printer was unable to print the additional census forms that were being requested. And even though there was a decline in the number of field officers for the census—even then they failed to provide the number of those staff. Yet we hear that the Government said in its response that this was all National’s fault. The default position if anything goes wrong in the Government is “Oh, it’s just the previous Government’s fault.”

We had the Prime Minister say that the primary concern was funding. Well, the independent report said that there was adequate funding and the level of budget was no excuse. The independent report from the Government said the Prime Minister was wrong. The Minister has attempted to sheet blame back to the previous Government as part of his ducking and diving from taking responsibility, saying that it was the digital-first strategy that was flawed. The independent report rejects that. It says that digital-first was an appropriate strategy—it worked in Australia; it worked in Canada—it was the delivery that was a failure.

I want to hold the Minister responsible in five specific areas where he let down the Government and the people of New Zealand. It is truly remarkable that in the six months after he became Minister—the six months before the census—he did not request or receive a single specific, in-person briefing on Census 2018. I contrast that with the record of Maurice Williamson, who had 10 specific meetings on the census in the six months prior to Census 2014. The Minister was asleep at the wheel. The briefing to the incoming Minister made plain that delivery of the census was one of the most important issues, and he was missing in action.

In the period prior to the census, his predecessor for Census 2014 issued 12 press releases encouraging people to participate in the census. How many did this Minister issue? Not a single one. In fact, he couldn’t even be bothered being in the country for the census, such was his lack of leadership—an issue that is criticised in the report, which identifies it as one of the key failings. I say to the Minister, you made a serious error of judgment—

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

—on the one week on which the census occurs in every five years, for the Minister to not even be participating in the census and being out of the country.

Then there’s the issue of transparency. If we look at the Minister’s response, he was telling the Parliament in April of 2018 that all the targets were being met. That was not true. We now know from the independent report that the census was failing to meet its targets on participation rates all the way from census night. Every single daily report showed that they were behind targets.

It has been like drawing teeth to get information about Census 2018. The target was 94 percent. Finally, after four months, the department of statistics admitted that it was only going to achieve 90 percent. Earlier this year, under scrutiny at the select committee, they finally admitted “Oh, no, no, no—oops!” Was it 90 percent? It was 85 percent. Then, finally, the independent report showed that participation was only 83 percent. In other words, 800,000 New Zealanders did not participate in that census, and my question for the Minister is: why was he not more upfront with New Zealanders when he knew within days of the census that the wheels were falling off?

Then, the Minister played the blame game and said that, oh no, it was nothing to do with him—it wasn’t his responsibility. He has the ministerial warrant. Under the Westminster tradition, he is finally responsible. I’ve seen colleagues from his side of the House call for Ministers’ resignations for far less than the census failure in 2018, but the Minister repeatedly refused to accept any responsibility and, indeed, ducked and dived in terms of providing open and honest answers about the degree to which the census failed.

This is how bad it got in the select committee. When we finally got out of the department of statistics that there were over 700,000 people that had not responded to the census, Government members on the select committee insisted that that information be secret until the end of the parliamentary term and after the next election. Hang on a moment, this is meant to be the most open, transparent Government ever, and they wanted—

💬 Ginny Andersen: You leaked it—you leaked it.

The member who interjects laid a privileges complaint against me in respect of providing the public with honest, frank information about the scale of the mistakes that were made and the hole in the data.

Then, we had the outrageous statements from James Shaw last week that somehow National is engaging in fake news and Trump-like politics, because he had become so defensive and so embarrassed about the census failure. Here’s the interesting part: compare the independent report with the public statements that were made about the census last year, and every one of James Shaw’s statements, whether it was “We were meeting all the targets.”, “It’s going to be the best census ever.”, “Those people that are criticising the census are in the business of fake news.”—line that up with the independent report and we actually find that National’s opposition and the media were far more accurate in their description of what had occurred with Census 2018 than what the Minister was saying. For that misinformation, he owes the Parliament and the people of New Zealand an apology.

The mess that occurred with Census 2018 now requires administrative data to be backfilled to try and fix this mess. Members on this side of the House have real questions about how you might pull that together—whether it be health data, education data, or IRD data—and somehow produce accurate statistics for New Zealand to plan and move forward. We have real doubts. We believe that if the census had been done properly, we would have had far more reliable information with which to deliver those important public services for New Zealand.

The department of statistics has failed. It’s failed to be transparent. It’s failed to deliver a census of quality, and my challenge for the Minister this afternoon is to stop the ducking and diving, take some responsibility, and recognise that you made serious errors of judgment—

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

—in preparation for the census, because New Zealanders will pay dearly for the failure that occurred last year.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I do welcome this urgent debate on the resignation of the Government Statistician and the report of the independent review into New Zealand’s 2018 census because I have been saying for much of the last 12 to 18 months that we should be reserving our judgment about whether the census was a failure or to what extent it was a failure until after we had the independent report.

I want to thank the reviewers—Murray Jack, who is a management consultant based in Auckland, and Connie Graziadei, who is a former deputy chief statistician for Canada—for their time and their efforts over the course of the last 12 months to produce what I think is a very comprehensive and very good report. I also do want to acknowledge that the Government Statistician has taken accountability for the failings in the census programme and has tendered her resignation.

Dr Smith has made a number of points about the failings that were outlined in the report, and they were quite extensive. The report refers to failings in the structure of the census leadership team, and found that that was overly complex; failings in governance and oversight of the census operation; and failings in the culture, which meant that key information wasn’t making it up the chain, certain risks were being managed without being escalated, decisions were made to vary the on-the-ground operation against the business plan without escalating those either to the Government Statistician or to Ministers, and so on.

As Dr Smith has outlined, there were also a number of on-the-ground failings in the operation, particularly to do with things like the failure to print enough paper forms, changes in the way that the list-leave process worked—or, rather, didn’t work. Stats NZ did fairly early on in the aftermath of census day itself say that they were quite clear from the early indications that they did not make it easy enough for people to participate in the census. So that has, essentially, been corroborated and borne out by the subsequent report. Dr Smith asks me to take my share of accountability for the census, and I do. I specifically asked the independent review panel to look into my role and into the role that previous Ministers made in respect of the census. I’d just like to enumerate the decisions that were made by previous Ministers and myself in relation to the census.

The Hon Maurice Williamson between November 2008 and May 2014 was the Minister. In February 2014, Cabinet agreed in principle for a modernised 2018 census. That was kind of the key part of the business case, and I’ll come back to the use of administrative data, which Dr Smith has raised some questions about. The Hon Nicky Wagner was the Minister between May and October of that year, 2014. There were two key decisions made on her watch in Budget 2014—that was the Budget for the first year of the census cycle—and there was also the detailed business case that followed on from that, in June.

The Hon Craig Foss was the Minister between October 2014 and December 2016, and there were three decisions there: Cabinet agreement for the proclamation of census day, and obviously the North Canterbury earthquake had an effect, including to reduce the scope of, and delay, the census test. That’s not his fault: obviously, the circumstances that were outlined in the report talked about the impact that the earthquake had on the ability to do the test. The Hon Mark Mitchell, of course, was Minister between December 2016 and May 2017. He oversaw the final census test, and one of the really disappointing things that I read in the report was that what got tested was not actually what got delivered on the ground. A number of decisions made about the variance to the plan were made on the ground whilst the census programme was being rolled out, which was obviously after the census test. So that was obviously disappointing. The Hon Scott Simpson, of course, made the final content decision.

The decisions that I was involved in as Minister started on census day itself, and essentially led to what happened afterwards. So as one of the many, many commentators on the census pointed out, I might not have created this mess, but I am responsible for fixing it, and I do take responsibility for that, Dr Smith.

So what I have committed to is that I will make absolutely sure that the recommendations that are outlined in the independent review will be implemented. I will make sure that I work very closely with the incoming chief executive of Stats NZ, and the outgoing chief executive of Stats NZ, the new Government Statistician, to ensure that those lessons are learnt and that the recommendations will be incorporated in the business case for the next census, which will take place in 2023—and, of course, the background work on that business case has already started, and that should happen in the first half of next year.

So I think that the accountability for what has happened in the census—the Government Statistician herself takes that extremely seriously and has had a number of conversations with me about that since not long after it became apparent that the numbers weren’t coming through. And, you know, some of those initial concerns were being expressed.

Now, I want to turn to the question of some of the language that’s getting used about the census being a failure. This is actually the point in the debate that I really want to take issue with. There were definitely failings in the census—that is absolutely clear—and they were severe, and they were particularly severe in terms of the inputs to the census. Dr Smith has enumerated these in some detail—the response rates that were coming through from people on the ground. So what the report makes clear is that the online component of the census actually was going extremely well; it was well above expectations, well above what was planned. There was a target of 70 percent online completion. The actual online completion was above 80 percent—somewhere between 80 and 81 percent—but the problem was that Stats NZ over-relied on the online component of the census and actually thought that people who weren’t completing it online would eventually kind of get the message and complete it online.

But actually what they should have been doing was going door to door and ensuring that people had not just log-in codes to get into the online, but actually that they had paper census packs—and they weren’t doing that. That is actually at variance with the original plan that was signed off by previous Ministers. So that was one of the key failings of the census.

As a result, there were very poor response rates, particularly, as Dr Smith says, from Māori and Pasifika communities, and that will have an impact on some of data sets that do come out of the census when they start getting released in September, December, and then early next year. However, there is a difference between saying that there was a failure in the data gathering, in the form of response rates, and saying that the census as a whole is a failure. And this is a very important distinction, and it’s one where the Opposition are continually conflating one with the other—that because the response rates were poor, the output is equally poor. That is because the remediation work that the census team have done since people were responding—that phase was closed. The remediation work has been outstanding, and in this the report says, actually, that the lessons learnt here are so good that not only should we continue to be using administrative data to supplement the response rates but it looks like that work is so good that not only should it be used here in New Zealand but actually there will be lessons learnt for other countries around the world as well—and that those techniques should be looked at for other countries. In fact, other countries are already using administrative data to supplement their response rates.

And I want to highlight this point as well—but, actually, I’ll just say this before I move on to the use of administrative data. The response rate is different from the coverage rate; the coverage rate is how many New Zealanders actually got counted in the census, and on this, this census has greater coverage than any other—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Spin—spinning out of control.

It is not spin, Dr Smith. It is not spin; it is in the independent report. In addition to this independent report by these two reviewers, there is also an independent data-quality review panel, with data experts from all over New Zealand and from the UK census office, who are verifying the methodology that has been used to create the output. And if you keep saying that the use of administrative data to supplement this is shonky, well, that is a lie; it is incorrect to say so.

And so what we’ve actually got is a greater coverage rate than we have had before, and that is because other parts of Government have got real data about real people from a variety of sources, including things like ACC records, district health board (DHB) records, education, births, deaths, and marriages, and so on and so forth. They have supplemented that in an incredibly rigorous way to make sure that we are actually counting all New Zealanders, or as many as possible. Therefore, because of that, what that means is that for the key uses of the census—that is, things like the setting of electoral boundaries, deprivation indices, DHB funding—the very things that Dr Smith was highlighting at the start of his speech about how important the census is for those most important censuses that Statistics NZ have advised, and the independent review here has corroborated, is fit for purpose and will meet its statutory requirements. New Zealanders need to know that, because no amount of spin from the Opposition will actually undermine that.

Fundamentally, the census will likely achieve the statutory requirements, and the quality of the data, for the most important purposes, will still be available for use. And Dr Smith can dispute that and they can take the Electoral Commission to court to try and overturn the results, and they will lose—they will lose—because they will be up against not just Statistics NZ statisticians but independent academic statisticians from all over New Zealand, from Canada, from the United Kingdom, who have taken a look at their methodology and said it is sound—it is sound. And so I would like Dr Smith to maybe just hold fire until the actual census data comes out. The population counts will be out in September, there’ll be subsequent information out in December, and then in the following years.

His own leader, I have to say—when Dr Smith talks about the need for openness and transparency—has said that one person’s fact is another person’s misinformation. That is why they’re trying to undermine the public’s faith in the census, because they want an environment in which no one trusts any of the data or any of the information. “Don’t trust Stats New Zealand. Don’t trust any sort of independent review. Don’t trust independent experts.”, so that they can therefore project all of their howling demons into that void and say, “Well, trust us. We know what we’re doing because we used to be Crown prosecutors in Tauranga and our information’s way better than all of the academics and all of the experts and all of the independent agencies that we’ve got here in New Zealand or around the world.”

Stats New Zealand are using international standards. They’re using some of the best practice to remediate the census, and it’s working. Not only that, the business case that that Government signed off on in 2014 called for the use of administrative data. In fact, there was advice from Treasury at the time that they didn’t even need a census—they didn’t even need to go door to door—because the administrative data should be good enough. So that Government signed off on a long-term census transformation plan that called for, ultimately, three or four censuses down the road, the idea that you might not even use a census at all because the Government administrative data would be so good you wouldn’t be able to use it. What we could say about the census is that we’ve actually started to create the future that they were designing as a result, unfortunately, of the circumstances that we found ourselves in because of the decisions that they had made.

So Dr Smith is, I think, playing fast and loose with the key findings of this report. I have committed that I will ensure that I work with the incoming leadership of Stats New Zealand in the transition to ensure that the lessons will be learnt not just within the census operation but right across the organisation and that we will be looking at leadership, and governance, and structure, and culture, and the other recommendations, and that we’ll be applying those lessons for the whole agency.

I do want to say that the Government Statistician has done everything that was asked of her by Peter Hughes, the State Services Commissioner, who said that he wants his chief executives, when there is a problem, to own it, to fix it, to learn from it, and to take accountability for it, and she has done that. I think that she can hold her head up high for having done that and that the remediation work that she is leaving is in good hands.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I welcome this opportunity to make a contribution on this urgent debate about last year’s census and put a few more facts on the record, because I think that there were a few contributions from the Minister which were perhaps a little bit understated. So allow me to elaborate on them a little bit further for those who might have missed it.

I think that asking for this debate is a spectacular own goal on the part of the Opposition—on the part of the previous Government, who were the ones who established the parameters under which last year’s census operated. It was the last Government that signed off on the decision to move to a digital-first model for the census. It was the last Government who were driving towards the use of more administrative data in future censuses. It was the last Government who supplied four of the five Ministers of Statistics who oversaw last year’s census, and yet you don’t see any of them accepting responsibility for what followed—not one of them—despite the fact that most of the major milestones towards last year’s census happened under their administration.

They were the ones that set the budget. They were the ones that decided to go digital. They were the ones that were pushing for more administrative data. They were the ones who were asking Stats New Zealand to undergo a massive transformation process all in that cycle of one census. Do you see anybody on the other side accepting any responsibility at all? No. Well, first of all, they wouldn’t be able to decide which one of their four Ministers of Statistics might actually accept responsibility for that. I tell you what, if we’re talking about quality oversight: on this side of the House, we have had one Minister of Statistics for the entire time that we have been in Government. We have provided a continuity that four Ministers under the last Government were unable to do.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Over nine years.

Our Government—it wasn’t under nine years; it was during the time of the planning for the census. Those four Ministers were in the last couple of years of that Government. They constantly reshuffled the role, because they didn’t think it was important. They just gave it to whoever the next Johnny-come-lately in their Cabinet was, because they didn’t think statistics was important. Perhaps if they had accorded it a little bit more priority and they’d had Ministers actually taking more interest in the planning for the census, they would have picked up that the decisions that they had made were creating problems. The decisions they made to go digital, the decisions they made to put more reliance on administrative data, the signing off of the milestones on the way to the preparation—all of which have been under their Government. No responsibility is being accepted by the National Party for that whatsoever, and I think it’s about time they did.

But instead, what we’ve seen from the National Party is this desperate attempt to discredit everything to do with the census—the burn-the-house-down style of politics that we’re seeing from the National Party, imported from their mates in Australia after their nice little cup of tea that Simon Bridges had. They came back and decided that the best way to get into Government was to just completely destroy the credibility of the entire Public Service by discrediting everything that any aspect of the Government does, because they are that desperate to get back into Government. We know that because of Simon Bridges’ own words: “One person’s facts are another person’s misinformation.” In other words, “Let’s create as much confusion as possible. Let’s discredit every aspect of Government whatsoever—every aspect of Government we possibly can—in order to try and get back into office.”

Well, I can say to the members opposite that it isn’t going to work, because New Zealanders can see through that type of behaviour. They can see how desperate the National Party have become—lashing out at everything and everybody in order to try and discredit this Government, and it’s not working.

So the National Party, the National Government, made the decision to adopt the digital-first model. That was one of the decisions that would have had an impact on the turnout. What is Nick Smith’s solution for getting a better turnout at the census? He thought the Minister should have issued more press releases encouraging people to fill in their census forms. Apparently the 2013 Census had a better turnout result, a better response result, because Maurice Williamson issued more press releases than James Shaw did. Apparently the golden solution to getting more people participating in the census was to get—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: The Minister was missing in action.

—the Minister issuing more press releases like Maurice Williamson did.

And now Nick Smith is yelling, “The Minister wasn’t in the country when the census took place.” Well, I can tell Nick Smith that that would have made a difference to one census result, and that was the Minister’s own census result. Other than that, it would have had no impact whatsoever on the census whether or not the Minister of Statistics was in the country or not at the time the census took place. A Minister issuing press releases is not going to result in more people filling in their census forms. And if he thinks that Maurice Williamson issuing more press releases was the reason for the turnout in 2013, he is seriously, seriously deluded.

Ultimately, the census did not go as anticipated, did not go as planned by the last Government, and there has to be some accountability for that, and there has been accountability for that. I do want to acknowledge that a senior public servant has stood down from her job. She has done the right thing by accepting responsibility, by accepting accountability, and I commend her for doing so, because that is ultimately where the buck stops—with the chief statistician, who is responsible for ensuring that the census was delivered in accordance with the rules, with the law, and with the obligations that were set down for the chief statistician. I think that she has done the right thing, and I commend her for doing that.

Now is the time for us to ensure that we have got robust data on which we can make decisions. Who am I going to rely on for advice on that? Not Nick Smith. I’m actually going to rely on the panel of international experts that have been formed to tell us whether or not we have reliable enough data to make decisions. Their advice is that, yes, we do. I am happy to take that advice, because they actually know what they’re talking about. They’re not trying to create confusion deliberately. They’re not peddling in misinformation, as the National Party have openly admitted that they are willing to do. They’re willing to say that one person’s fact’s another person’s misinformation. The statisticians who have been running a ruler over this exercise are not engaged in that type of behaviour. They’re actually interested in making sure we’ve got robust data on which to make decisions. I am confident that if they are telling us that they think the census has been able to produce that, supplemented with the other information that’s been obtained, then I am willing to take that advice.

It is simply astonishing to listen to the previous two speakers. Minister Shaw—after listening to his speech, I came to the conclusion that, basically, firstly, as the Minister he has no responsibility whatsoever for the disaster of Census 2018; and, secondly, it was actually a good census, because we achieved a high coverage rate and because we did well with many other areas. He also claimed that he trusts academics more than other people. But if you listen to the academics, you’ll find they claim that this is a disaster. Listen to Professor Arnold. Listen to Professor Paul Spoonley. You’ll see they all believe the census is a disaster.

Listen to the Hon Chris Hipkins. You’ll find that he has not read the report at all. He continues to blame the previous Government for the decision and for the funding issue. Well, the report has made it very clear that the decision was a good decision and the census was sufficiently funded. Also, Mr Hipkins said that “Oh, the PR issue? PR is not particularly important, and the Minister does not have to be in the country for the census.” But what we can see: in a battlefield, a general can be away, seeing all. In the end, the general will not shoot anyway. So the leader must be there, and the Minister should stay in the country. This is very simple. To be a leader, you need to be in the country to lead your team. But he was away, and he did not express any particular interest in the census. That was highlighted by the fact that he did not issue a single press release to encourage people to participate.

This report has confirmed what we have known for about 18 months—that is, Census 2018 is a disaster, a failure, a debacle, a shambles. The review—I quote this review—says, “Two of the four investment objectives … were not met and a third is likely to be very challenging. As such, it would be easy to conclude that the 2018 Census was not successful.”

💬 Hon James Shaw: That’s right; it would be easy to conclude that.

That’s right. Instead of taking any responsibility, the Government has been blaming the previous National Government about the decision, saying that “Oh, the National Government made the decision. It was the wrong decision.”, while it is clear the decision was made to be in line with international census development. Look at Canada; look at Australia—the two countries who did online censuses in 2016. In Canada, the response rate was 98.4 percent. In Australia, it reached 94.8 percent. So these two countries did very well—the online census—and with good results. That is why we believe in a future which moves to an online census. The problem is that this Government, from the Minister down to Stats New Zealand, did not pay attention. The online census did not do well, did not execute the operation well, and made huge mistakes.

Looking at this report again, it says—to quote—“The design principles for the 2018 Census were feasible and were influenced by a successful methodology adopted internationally,”. So there was no problem with the decision. In terms of funding, this Government claimed the National Party did not give enough money to the census. Minister Shaw and also the Prime Minister continue to complain about this. Well, this report, again, says on page 16 that “The 2018 Census programme had sufficient budget to carry out its programme plan.” So there was no problem with the funding at all. So what’s the problem? The lack of leadership is the major factor: the lack of leadership from the Minister and from this Government, not just Stats New Zealand’s leadership.

As I’ve mentioned, this Minister did not express any particular interest in the census—no press release, was away from the country—and from the very beginning he expressed blind confidence in Stats New Zealand without doing his own job. Well, look at it. Just four days before census day, there had been various signs that Census 2018 was running into trouble. Minister Shaw had no such sense and was not concerned. He was still aiming at a response rate of 95 to 99 percent—95 to 99 percent. More astonishingly, he stayed out of this and went overseas. Then, one month later, on 12 April last year, he told this House, in answering my question, that “from all indications we are on track to meet the census numbers, as with any previous census.”, and that “What I would say is that this census looks to be more successful than previous censuses, that we’re meeting all of our targets,”. That’s over one month after the census. He still expressed his blind confidence, because he did not know what really was going on.

However, three months later, he started to realise there was a problem—there was a mess. Then he started to hide behind officials. He said, “I expressed my confidence based on advice from Statistics New Zealand”—that’s not my problem; that’s the officials’ problem, right? He has continuously hid behind the officials. Officials have become the shield for Minister Shaw. He has no courage to face up to the failure and—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! You can’t say that about a member.

OK, sorry. He has not taken any responsibility. Well, chief statistician Liz MacPherson took the responsibility and resigned. That should have exposed the Minister, but still he has not acknowledged any—any—fault or responsibility. Well, the question is: had he asked the officials tough questions about the 2018 census? Obviously he had not. So on 6 March 2019, the anniversary of the failed 2018 census, we were told in this House that Minister Shaw had not taken advice on key risks surrounding Census 2018, and that was one year after the census debacle.

So this Minister was asleep at the wheel for the past two years, when he has been Minister of Statistics. We ask: why do we need a Minister if whenever something goes wrong in his department, he will simply say, “Well, that’s not my problem; that’s the officials’ problem.”? So the Minister should take his responsibility.

Now, we are concerned about this census because we are concerned about the accuracy issue. This Government has been labelling itself as a wellbeing Government, but in the end they delivered the worst census in our history. Without accurate data, how can we ensure that this Government will be able to deliver wellbeing? Those agencies who really are dependent on accurate data will not be able to deliver or to carry out their own responsibilities or job to make sure that wellbeing is indeed being delivered. So health and social workers, social support, education—these agencies will not be able to have up-to-date census data and therefore will not be able to really deliver what they should be able to deliver in terms of protecting or promoting wellbeing and equity in New Zealand. I do ask the Minister to face up to the challenge and take more responsibility.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d just like to thank the member Dr Jiang Yang, Dr Yang Jiang—I think that’s how you say it—with his rendition of Sun Tzu’s Art of War, with his generals in the field, shooting guns and being there. I think that was eloquently spoken. I’d also like to take a moment to acknowledge Liz MacPherson for having the fortitude and courage to do the honourable thing, to actually tender her resignation for her role as chief statistician. It wouldn’t have been an easy decision to make, although it was the right one. I think you have to take a moment to consider what will be taking a huge weight off her mind, but also the weight that she has had to deal with over the last couple of years in coming to terms with this.

The report that’s come out—although I haven’t read it in its entirety, I’ve had a chance to have a look at it. I think it’s given a very clear and fair overview of some of the failings from this census, but it also acknowledges some of the failings and some of the avoidable problems, moving forward, that we can take some learnings from. I’d also like to acknowledge quite strongly how impressed I was with the speech that the Hon James Shaw has given today, because he, I think, has humbly acknowledged his responsibility in this situation, unlike what Dr Jian Yang has spoken about with regards to saying he’s not taking any responsibility at all. He’s taken this matter very, very seriously from the very start, and has acknowledged, as the Minister, he is responsible for it, but, moving forward, he is responsible to ensure that these problems don’t happen again.

I’ve got Nick Smith smiling at me like a Cheshire cat across the House at the moment. In none of his speeches, in any of his attacks that he has given in the House about this situation has he—he’s been completely disingenuous for not giving any responsibility to Ministers of the previous Government for their planning and their lack of execution from it. With five Ministers that they’ve had at the helm to actually deal with this problem, the first decision—and, I have to say, the right decision—to start phasing into a digital framework has been completely and utterly discounted from this member’s elastic—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Has the member read the report?

You should have been listening—with his elastic conscience when it comes to this issue moving forward.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am.

Sorry, you are, yes.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Has the member read the report?

I’ve already spoken, Mr Smith. You’ve got to start listening, all right? So the point being is what we’ve got to deal with here is a bit of a bugger’s muddle, but nothing that we can’t tidy up from. I have to say, the idea to move into a digital framework moving forward is important. But the push that they have made, the previous Government had made, to try and make this all happen within a five-year period—when the elections took over and a new Government took its new phase in 2017, in late October, there were only five months until the census came on board. Yet there’s an expectation from Nick Smith and the previous Government that the Minister should take on all the responsibility for all the work leading up to something that had been planned out for five years.

Now, it’s not as bad as the member across the House would like to make out. There has been a lot of exceptional data that is going to be very, very useful. But we’ve also got the opportunity to make sure that, moving forward, we don’t have these technical issues repeat themselves. That’s the key to this. That’s what I’ve picked up out of the Hon James Shaw’s comments this afternoon, is that there is a lot of opportunity to tidy things up in certain spaces.

There are also some issues that were out of any Minister’s control, and that was the incident around the Kaikōura earthquake. Now, that took a lot of focus, a lot of time, and took resources away from Statistics New Zealand. When they were doing that trial, there were issues with the depth of that trial that took place. Certainly, moving forward, we cannot predict when we have a natural disaster such as the one we had and those people’s availability, but we can just ensure that Statistics New Zealand and the role that they play needs to be taken very seriously. This is why we’ve had the continuity of the role under the leadership of this Government, whereas in the past we’ve had very much a changing in and out, baton-changing sort of an atmosphere, which doesn’t help for that continuity to take place. Of course, we’ve got extra funding to ensure that Statistics New Zealand can actually get the data that they need. They certainly do have the expertise there, and we’ve just got to make sure that we’re not out there virtue-signalling, trying to discourage or discombobulate—which is the favourite word of the month—the public, which will be listening to some of this rhetoric from across the House and have been, definitely, misinformed.

Moving forward, some of the key positive, independent findings of that review is that the IT systems and a register of addresses will now be available for future census surveys, and Stats New Zealand has a good understanding of integrating administrative data with census information to produce high-quality data sets—which was the idea set forward by the previous Government, but they didn’t quite come up with a plan of how they were going to execute that. The 2018 census attempted to implement unprecedented changes as Stats New Zealand moved forward, over a short period of time. I think, in hindsight, it would have been better to take a slower, more methodical approach than the one that the previous Government had come forth with at such rapid fire.

So to wrap things up, I would just like to, again, say to the Minister who is taking responsibility for fixing this mess up to ensure that the next census that we have in a little over three years’ time is going to be a lot better—and with the learnings that we have learnt from the mistakes that the previous Government has made that we’ve been left to tidy up, we’ll be certainly well-pleased.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: You haven’t read the report.

Yes, I’ve read some of the report, as I said in my earlier contribution. So, ladies and gentlemen, that’s all I’ve got to say today. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. What a wonderful speech we just heard from that Government member, Clayton Mitchell, just now: “It’s a bit of a … muddle,”. I won’t repeat his exact words: “It’s a bit of a … muddle,”; “Nothing we can’t clean up. It will be all right, we can clean it up.”

Well, that member obviously has not read the independent report, which found that, to the contrary of what the Prime Minister and Minister James Shaw have been touting for the last 18 months about how well this census is going—the independent report absolutely gives the lie to that. In fact, what the independent report found was the statements made by the Prime Minister and James Shaw were to be less trusted than, perhaps, they might have been, because what they found was that the census was not underfunded, and that the digital-first strategy was a perfectly good, sound strategy. So they were not the issues that caused the terrible failure of this census, which has unfolded in front of us for the past 18 months. So any notion that, yet again, it was the previous Government’s fault for this current Government’s failings—a very convenient narrative of this Government—well, I’m afraid to tell that member and members of the Government that that story just does not hold any weight. Do not believe my words—you wouldn’t, of course—but please do read the independent report to find the truth of the matter, which is that Census 2018 was adequately funded and the digital-first strategy was more than adequate.

So I do look forward to perhaps some more sensible and less defensive debate, perhaps a little bit less defensive and a little more clarity coming from the Government over what has been an absolute “something something muddle”—not going to say what it is. Can I suggest to the Government that this needs a little more than an attitude of “Nothing that we can’t clean up.” I’ll tell you why that is: because in the next five years—the next period of this current census—$100 billion in public money will be spent based on the information in the 2018 census. So for the next five years, public expenditure on health, on education, on infrastructure, on numbers of people, and on the number of teachers in schools—goodness knows! The number of birthing units we have down south, to name but one example that matters to those people, will be based on information where this current Government had to backfill for 825,000 people whose statistics were not counted.

So with those 825,000 people who were unable to fill in a census because they couldn’t get the documents or figure out or have access to the online version, the Government will just guess. They will just guess. The chief statistician will just guess. They’ll use matrixes and they’ll use all sorts of data, none of which may be relevant to that day on 5 June last year, if I’ve got the date right, and that was the year of census week. And, by the way, that was also the week when the Hon James Shaw was flying off to parts unknown to speak at a climate change conference.

So in terms of a Minister whose really got a handle on his portfolio, I don’t think that could be said of James Shaw, who in the 18 months leading up to the census did not receive one specific briefing on the census—not one. He didn’t issue one press release reminding people that we were moving to a new online platform and it would be a good idea to raise some public awareness because, actually, your details in census do matter. Letting the public know and getting them a bit excited about census does matter. Particularly when we have a Government which is so very keen on bowling head-on into online voting, one would have thought that there would have been a high degree of support, but where was it? It was completely absent.

Well, at least the chief statistician has had the grace to take responsibility for this census. What a poor result. What poor support the chief statistician has had from her Minister. Where was he during the census? He was nowhere to be seen. Where is he now? He is washing his hands. It’s all good—it’s all good! The census will be fine!

Except that it’s not fine, because that public money, that $100 billion in the next five years which will be based on the census findings, will be largely guess work. So the expenditure on infrastructure planning—that is very important for local government. As they begin to grapple with issues around infrastructure spend to do with Three Waters, who can trust the statistics that underpin that infrastructure spending for any local authority area in New Zealand?

The electoral boundaries—there is an election in a little over 12 months. How can members of Parliament and how can those people that we serve be assured that the boundaries as drawn effectively and realistically reflect the populations they’re in? It does matter, particularly in large electorates where the boundaries shift a lot over time, that those voters are getting the best representative to represent them based on the size of their electorate.

What about social policy research, something held dear by every Government? How will the Government know where to direct its attention around social policy when it has such poor return rates from Māori and Pacific Islanders? So for Pacific Island people, only 63 percent of their population were counted in the census. What’s the rest of it going to be? Is it going to be guess work? What about Māori—68 percent? What’s the rest of it going to be? Is it going to be guess work? Well, the short answer is, yes, it is going to be guess work. This is a Government and this is a Minister—James Shaw—who’s literally been asleep at the wheel and is letting down the people of New Zealand where it absolutely matters.

I want to turn to Maurice Williamson, who is well known to this House and who was very proud of the roles that he was involved in. We all remember SmartGate, and we’re getting a bit far from the argument here, but he achieved that project because he was enthusiastic. He gave the House updates every second week, and it was a project that worked. He was fully engaged with it, as he was with the census. He gave the House many, many updates on how the census was going. He was engaged and he cared; this is not so for the current Minister.

For the past 18 months, this country has had to endure shifting sands of targets. Well, they started off with a 95 percent target for the whole population. It dropped to 90 percent because things weren’t going so well. Then it dropped to 85 percent. Finally, the final report said that only an 83 percent target of returns was achieved. That is a fail. That is an epic fail, and nothing this Government tries to do to dance around the issue and shift the blame—which they’re getting very, very good at—is going to wash where it really matters, and that is with the allocation of public funding to New Zealand.

So we’ve had the charade of dismissing concerns about the census for 18 months. How much longer is this going to go on? There has been a complete lack of openness and transparency in this whole process by a Government which, at the start of its term, promised to be the most open and transparent Government this country has ever seen. Well, goodbye to that charade as well.

Finally, this is an example of a part-time Minister and a part-time Government absolutely failing to deliver for the needs of New Zealanders.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. If there is one thing that is appropriate to say at this point, it’s that, obviously, we’re debating the resignation of the Government Statistician. This is an incredibly unfortunate event. Actually, I really hope that the individual concerned isn’t listening to this as we dissect the pros and cons of what she did right and what she did wrong, from where we sit, from our seats here in the debating chamber. The fact remains that the Government Statistician has accepted her liability in this process. She, herself, has said that the buck stops with her, and she has tendered her resignation.

What I’d like to say is that this was a mistake. There was a very big mistake that was made here. We have to find a solution through this. When it comes to mistakes, the best thing that you can do is own up to them, and that’s exactly what the Government Statistician has done and that’s exactly what our Minister, James Shaw, has done as well. I am yet to actually hear any kind of responsibility from the Opposition, who, despite planning for the census starting in 2014, remain very, very silent and accusatory towards our current Government and for the part that our Government has played in this.

This independent review found, obviously, that the census did not achieve all of its goals; there were significant shortcomings. But it also showed that thanks to Statistics New Zealand’s remediation efforts using their administrative data, the most important statistical information regarding population coverage is better than previous census service has achieved.

So, thankfully, the message that we’ve got to send to New Zealand is that work is under way to ensure that these mistakes don’t happen again. A mistake was made, it was owned up to, and we have to ensure that the next census is the best that it can be. It is, as I said before, appropriate that the Government Statistician has accepted her part in this. The Minister has accepted the decision taken by her to step down at the end of 2019. The timing is going to ensure that there will be a level of continuity while Statistics New Zealand work to complete the data analysis of this census and also to start planning the next census.

The Minister will be closely, obviously, monitoring Statistics New Zealand to ensure that they rebuild a very strong foundation for the next census. Naturally, there were some positive findings from the review. The review found that the census had provided a population coverage of 98.6 percent, which was around 4.7 million people. As I said before, that is better coverage than the 2013 census. Online participation was expected to be at 70 percent—that was the expected target, 70 percent participation—but we’ve found that online participation actually exceeded that and it came in at 80 percent. IT systems and a register of addresses will now be available for future census surveys, and Statistics New Zealand has a good understanding of integrating administrative data with census information to produce highly high-quality data sets.

This has been an incredibly drawn out process. It was right to initiate the independent review. It was right for the Government Statistician to step down from her role. But it’s also right that we as a House of Parliament, not just a Government, do everything that we can to ensure that we get it right for the next census, because, as the previous speaker indicated, so much of what we fund, so much of our boundaries—so much relies on good-quality data and information. So we are standing here debating it, but it’s my opinion that this has been remedied. The move has been made, the resignation has been tendered and accepted by the Minister, and we need to start focusing our events on the next census and where exactly we can tidy up this process.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call the Hon Scott Simpson—five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. One of the problems with using, as the basis for a speech in a debate like this, talking notes that have been prepared by somebody else and that purport to be a review of an independent review report is that sometimes they’re wrong. The previous speaker in this debate, Tamati Coffey, has just proved that case very aptly, because much of what he was saying actually was not in the report, and it wasn’t actually a fair or accurate reflection of what the independent reviewers made in their report. I have taken the trouble, as a former Minister of Statistics, to read the report very thoroughly, and I have to say that I’m very disappointed to find out how little work was done after the change of Government.

It’s appalling, really, that a Minister could take over at a crucial time in a census calendar programme and have so little focus on the job at hand in the crucial last six months before a census. When all the detail work had been done, when all the prep work had allegedly been done, I would have thought that a new Minister would have been very eager and very keen to get into the detail. What do we find? Actually, that did not occur. The report is scathing in its indictment upon the lack of credible detail that was provided not only to me and my predecessors but also to the current Minister. I would’ve thought that even a Minister who was clearly more focused on other portfolio responsibilities at the time would have taken time and trouble to ask some very basic questions, if only to seek for himself some personal reassurance that all was going well. It seems now, from the evidence in the report and also corroborative evidence from diary matching and similar information, that meetings simply didn’t occur, that questions simply were not asked. It’s not that they weren’t answered; it’s just that they were not asked, and that is a sign of a Minister who was literally asleep at the wheel.

Much has been made of the fact that the Minister was not in the country, didn’t participate in the census on census night. Now, yes, there was a Labour Minister who said, “Well, that made one difference to one census return.”, but, actually, it’s far more important than that. It’s a symbolic leadership function of a Minister of Statistics to participate, surely, in a census process. For that not to have occurred is absolutely a failure to deliver.

I was concerned to read in the report, and I want to quote from it, “We find a level of optimism in the reporting to Ministers that was not always consistent with the level of issues being managed by the programme.” Now, that’s really code for “Yes, Minister.” That’s really what it’s code for. Code is “Yes, Minister.” So when I was asking regular, consistent, persistent, obvious questions about the progress of Census 2018 and getting positive, gung-ho reassurances from officials, from the chief executive, about progress and about how the impact of the Kaikōura earthquake and the inability for Stats to service Statistics House and how they were operating from three different sites in Wellington, and I was being told that, no, they had that under control, it turns out now that some of those answers were, as the report says, provided in terms of a “level of optimism in the reporting to Ministers that was not always consistent with the level of issues being managed by the programme.” That is a sad thing not only for those officials, but it’s a sad thing for New Zealand and for the information that we rely on.

Just in summary, in my own electorate of the Coromandel, there were media reports in the days following the census that census personnel were instructed not to bother going up long driveways or to geographically challenged areas, and that then leads me to think that, as a member of Parliament, I don’t have confidence, and I don’t think we can, as a Parliament, rely on the information that is now being filled in—backfilled, if you like—in terms of setting electoral boundaries for next year’s general election. This is a sad indictment on a Minister who was asleep at the wheel.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this urgent debate. The question I have for this House today is: is there a genuine desire to get good-quality data in New Zealand? Is there a genuine desire in this House to give New Zealand the truth, information about what’s happening in our country? I would say, on this side of the House, there is a Minister and a genuine desire to get things right, and when there have been issues in terms of delivery, there has been a comprehensive review on how that transition to digital needs to happen more effectively, and an accurate plan how we can move towards that.

We have heard good information tonight from the Minister about how there were active steps in place to make sure we do have good-quality data here in New Zealand. But from that side of the House, it’s not quite the same thing. First of all, there has been absolutely no recognition of the fact that there were issues in the set-up that went right back to 2014—that there was a real problem, back in 2014, under the different Ministers who have administered this project over time. The different Ministers and people involved—[Interruption] Let me read them out for you once again, to those members opposite. Maurice Williamson, number one. Number two, Nicky Wagner. Number three, Craig Foss. Number four, Mark Mitchell. Number five, Scott Simpson. These are five different people that’ve had responsibility for coordinating and shepherding one piece of work. So how can we expect that there is consistency and accuracy in how we deliver these issues?

One of the main issues raised by the report that’s so quietly being mentioned on the other side right now is that the issue was with the testing that was agreed to by Mark Mitchell—the tests in place—and it was the real, apparent lack of understanding how those tests would translate into practice. The problem with the delivery was the fact that the plan, which was not even tested back in 2014, is one of the underlying reasons that this report found that the issues we received when delivering were not fulfilled. That is the truth, and that is the truth that New Zealanders deserve to hear when this issue is being debated, because there is more to this. There’s not just an inaccuracy in terms of what’s being said on the other side of the House; there is a deliberate, purposeful misrepresentation of information, and that is systematic of a wider agenda by those members opposite. That, also, is typified in the behaviour of the Hon Dr Nick Smith in the Governance and Administration Committee when considering this issue and hearing from key officials and the chief executive over this time. I would say that the leaking of information by the Hon Dr Nick Smith over this time got to the point of being farcical. Instead of actually having to—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member has alleged that I leaked documents from the select committee. That has been the subject of a privileges complaint by that member. That was dismissed by the Speaker, and it was found that the information that was released was entirely appropriate. I seek the leave of the House to table the letter from the member and the reply from the Speaker regarding the information concerned.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m going to deal with the first part first. I apologise to the House; I was slightly distracted on another matter at the time, but I’m going to ask the member Ginny Andersen whether that is correct.

I would like to be able to table the Stuff article which was published after the—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No, no, that’s not what I asked. The Hon Dr Nick Smith has said that you made an accusation; is that correct or not?

That is correct.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): The member will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Thank you. And to the second part, the seeking of leave—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek the leave of the House to table the letter from the member seeking to keep the Statistics decision around the 700,000 people who didn’t comply secret and the response from the Speaker, saying that it was appropriate for the information to be released.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. The document can be tabled. Are you continuing with your contribution?

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Yes. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It was also interesting to note that there was good coverage in the media around that time that was always readily available, and sometimes instead of reading my agenda for the Governance and Administration Committee that night, I would just turn on Radio New Zealand and would hear Dr Nick Smith telling us exactly what would be considered in the committee the next day, and that was often a much quicker way—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! That’s not part of the independent report or the resignation of the Government Statistician. So come back to the motion on the Table.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. So what we were hearing from the issues—[Interruption] And it’s interesting to hear that there are concerns, because there was a lack of good information available, and that is right. The problem is that there is a deliberate attempt to give misinformation about the history of this issue, and that is what has got the backs up of the members opposite. There is truth in the fact that National has no credibility to call this decision now into question, and the idea even that there should be a consideration in this area needs to be revisited for the fact that there is a history that goes right back. That is obviously a very sore point for those members opposite, in fact. The history is that there was a long time when decisions were taken under a previous Government that were contributing factors to where we have been placed right now, and the report quite clearly points that out.

There are some significant issues, and when you come back to what we have actually heard today, what we have actually heard is that there have been two main points made in terms of what the National Party considers should happen next. The first one is that they have concerns that the Minister wasn’t in the country at the time the census was happening. Now, I fundamentally fail to see how that relates to any of the issues in terms of transitioning from a paper to a digital platform, any foresight into how we can make this process better; it is simply making one statement of fact that has absolutely no ramifications on the outcome of this issue. The second point made by those members opposite is that there weren’t enough press releases issued over this time—that somehow we would all be in a better position right now and there would be no problems if the Minister of Statistics had whacked out a few more press releases. So I am assuming that there is a tally of the number of press releases released by the Hon Maurice Williamson under his watch, and we’ve got a tally kept there that that’s included in the National Party key lines today, that you’ve won out on press releases and that that somehow demonstrates a greater transparency on that side of the House.

The key area is that, yes, there have been some delivery details in place, and that is why there has been accountability at the highest level from this side, to make sure such errors do not occur again. It is important, the other point that we heard Scott Simpson mention today. It was also about this backfill data, and a more accurate term you might find for “backfill data” is the fact that it’s administrative data. In that report, when you go back in terms of those previous Cabinet decisions taken by the last National Government, there was an agreement in there to acknowledge that administrative data can be used quite accurately. So it is an inaccurate comment and it contributes to the ongoing issues—that National wilfully misrepresents what the problems are and that there is a high level of scaremongering, and this has a negative effect in the sense that it undermines the public confidence in Statistics. There’s a burn the house down, let’s say it’s all gone approach without trying to move forward and have a good outcome. I do believe that New Zealanders have a general expectation on issues of such importance—of data, of reporting about what’s happening in people’s lives—that there is some good, cross-party coordination in this, there are some levels, instead of playing petty politics and not actually looking at what the facts were in this situation. That is quite clearly what has happened here. It has quite clearly happened.

Look, I am looking forward to coming into an era when we do have good-quality data, but the important fact that we need to take away is that the work is being done to use administrative data—that we are in a good space to have good-quality information moving forward. National members knew back then that that was a possibility, and it has always been able to be used as a backup to get good data when it’s required in those areas. That is the misinformation that those members opposite have continued to perpetuate in this area. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Often reports of this sort become part of the parliamentary record. On this occasion, it’s a report to the Minister and the Government Statistician. I think it is of sufficient moment that it should be tabled in the House. I seek the leave of the House to table the review of New Zealand’s 2018 census.

That document is publicly available, so it can’t be tabled. It is available for all members to read at their leisure.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.