April 30, 2019
Census gaps challenge to mana Māori
The Māori Data Sovereignty Network Te Mana Raraunga wants to know what percentage of Māori ethnicity and descent records for Census 2018 had to be sourced from outside the census.
Statistics New Zealand says it will be able to start releasing census data in September, as a massive exercise to trawl through other government records to make up for the fact nearly one in seven people did not complete the census.
Stats NZ says the counts for Māori ethnicity and descent, which are used for setting electoral boundaries and for allocating funding in areas like health and education, are likely to be more comprehensive than those from the Census 2013.
Te Mana Raraunga says Census 2013 had the lowest Māori coverage of any recent Census, so this improvement is off a low base.
It says the limitations of the Census 2018 Māori data, including the failure to issue any reliable iwi counts, are an unacceptable brake on efforts to advance Māori social, cultural and economic wellbeing.
Ensuring that Census 2023 delivers for Māori will require the application of Māori data sovereignty and Māori data governance to Census processes as well as to the official statistics system as a whole.
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