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Home / Whanganui Chronicle

Census a vital pointer

By Ross Pringle
Whanganui Chronicle·
4 Mar, 2013 09:53 PM2 mins to read

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It's time to stand up and be counted. Today is Census Day, the time when we are all obliged to answer a few questions about ourselves and our home situation.

The reason, of course, is to help key decision-makers - the information is used by government, iwi, councils and businesses. Depending on what the data show, it can influence billions of dollars of spending.

For news organisations, Census data are often used for comparison and to identify possible issues that need to be addressed.

The changes in society are reflected in the questions and the answers help define social policy. Imagine if we had to rely on information from the 1971 Census, when people were asked if their home had a flush toilet, telephone, fridge, deep freeze or powered lawnmower.

It is no small exercise, counting every person in the country and collating information about them. The Census is said to cost about $72 million and will involve 7500 collectors dropping off forms to about 4.2 million people. One key difference this time is that we can fill out our forms online, an advance that reduces the number of visits for collectors and which will speed data collation.

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Some object to what they see as personal data being collected. The Libertarianz Party's campaign for people to burn or destroy forms as a form of civil disobedience prompted a warning: do so and face a $500 fine, with another $20 for each day you fail to complete the forms.

After the last Census in 2006, there were about 70 prosecutions of people who refused to fill in their forms.

Some take the view they will deliberately sabotage the results by giving incorrect or nonsensical responses.

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The sensible and correct thing to do is fill out the forms on time as honestly you can. With everything from electoral boundaries, school decile rankings, health spending, affordable housing policies all affected by the responses, there is too much at stake to muck around with infantile games.

Feedback: editor@wanganuichronicle.co.nz

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