March 06, 2023
Clashing views on Māori census plan
Urban Māori leader and Whānau Ora Commission Agency chief executive John Tamihere predicts another huge Māori under-count in tomorrow’s census.
He says census data is important to Māori organisations and iwi who want to reconnect with their people, but the bureaucrats who run the census see them as competitors rather than partners.
Statistics NZ could have called on workers in the Whānau Ora network to support people to complete the census.
“So we run into a major difficulty in the so-called agency that runs the census actually sabotaging the ability for Māori to get their numbers up,” Mr Tamihere says.
He says the Māori census count also affects the number of Māori seats in parliament.
But Stats NZ director Māori, Te Atawhai Tibble is expecting a far better census for Māori than in 2018.
People are expected to have their forms completed by tomorrow night, except for those in the cyclone-hit areas of Taitokerau, Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay where there will be an additional eight weeks to complete data collection.
Mr Tibble says this time there has been direct involvement of Māori in the promotion of the Census and the collection of forms.
He’s detecting real interest from Māori in being involved.
“I’ve never seen this before by iwi and by wider communities, Whānau Ora being an example. I think Māori are really on the data wave. They understand the importance of data sovereignty which is really, if not control, definitely access and sitting at the table, not just being on the menu,” he says.
Mr Tibble says Stats NZ is looking closely at the result of its census collection pilot partnerships with iwi in Taitokerau, Tairawhiti and Te Whānau a Apanui.