Is the census necessary?

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34104, 17 March 1976, Page 12

Is the census necessary?

The vast amount of work necessary to make the census, which is just one week away, will keep many of the staff at the Department of Statistics working for the next few years. Is it worth while?

The /Government Statistician (Mr E. A. Harris) certainly thinks so. He is visiting Christchurch to see the preparations being made before the forms are collected, confident that the information gained from the census will be available much faster than ever before.

This year for the first time the main processing centre is in Christchurch. Census returns have previously been handled in Lower Hutt but the difficulty of obtaining staff and office accommodation there caused the change in centres, the Press Association reports from Wellington.

The deputy Government Statistician (Mr L. C. Neilson) said that providing jobs in Christchurch also influenced the decision. The department will employ 300 temporary staff in Christchurch and another 100 temporary staff will be recruited for work in Lower Hutt.

A census was a form of national stock-taking, said i [ Mr Harris. The information | ' was vital to Government and ■ local-body planning, as. well i as to business. It showed ; how much progress the ■ country had made in the last five years, and enabled pre- “ dictions about future trends. A summary of information should be completed by the ■ end of the year, and this ■ would be published immediately. 1 This is the first time that ! a summary was to be proJ vided, said Mr Harris. The i department would apply 3 scientific sampling procedure 3 to the data. It would include ■ about 10 per cent of the total information, would be 3 done on a regional basis,

\and should be highly accu:rate. I New methods would save . six months of tape punchI ing, for the newer computers [ were able to take data ; directly by a process which read optical characters. There were different

questions from the last census, said Mr Harris. These were mostly about consumer items, and were included to provide figures on the growth of the consumer market

As well, the census distributors were carrying voting registration forms. The electoral laws had been amended to allow this. Although similar to the method .of census taking in Australia, our method was

quite different from that of the United States, which counted the individual, but interviewed only a sample for more detailed information. Although the census was a major part of the work of the Department of Statistics, there were another thirtypublications to come out this year, including the YearBook.

In spite of increases in staff, and better equipment, Mr Harris could not see the department ever being able to supply all the information sought by public and private groups. "The demand for information, especially to assist economic predictions, is increasing steadily,” he said.