March 07, 2023
Census critical for Māori cultural identity
It’s Census night and a Māori academic who will use the information says it’s vital Māori don’t opt out.
University of Waikato professor of demography Tahu Kukutai says. At the same time, there is an ongoing debate over who should govern access to data, that doesn’t take away the importance of census information to Maori.
“So the census is really important and that information is then used for a huge range of different reasons around cultural identity and revitalisation, around policy and planning and resource allocation,” she says.
Professor Kukutai says with even simple questions such as how many Maori there are in Aotearoa, the only place to get the data is the census.