CENSUS QUESTIONS

Grey River Argus, 20 September 1945, Page 3

CENSUS QUESTIONS

MINISTER’S EXPLANATION P.A. WELLINGTON, Sept. 19 In the House to-day, Hon. W. Nash made a statement to clear up some misunderstandings which appeared to have' arisen concerning questions asked in-the census schedule. He said that it should be clearly understood that no question nad been included for other than purely statistical purposes to 1 enable the Statistician to obtain a picture of the community as a whole. “Tne information ’ on each individual schedule is confidential, and no schedule will be made available to other than the members of the staff of the Census. Statistics Office,” proceeded the Minister. “The same assurance can be -given in relation to a question about income. This question has nothing to do with income tax, or any other taxation. Its purpcpse is purely statistical to enable the Statistician to present a clear picture of the various income groups into which New Zealanders can oe classified. In relation to other data, such as occupations similar questions have been asked in other censuses.

“It has been suggested, instead of asking the question about income in the census schedule, the Statistician could use the income data already in the possession of the Commissioner of Taxes. This, however, is entirely impracticable, because the personal returns to the Taxation.. Department are just as confidential as the census and other statistical returns are confidential to the Statistician. The protection that is given to this confidential information is such that neither department could disclose its information to the other. The confidential nature of the information is emphasised on the census form. “Reference has been made to a number of census questions set out in a recent Gazette notice,” continued Mr. Nash. “This has given the- erroneous impression that there is a large number of new questions.The explanation is that the Census and Statistics Act merely sets, out certain basic heads of inquiry, the remainder having been providea oy regulation for each census. So the list of- questions recently gazetted included not merely a few new questions, but also many that have Deen asked during earlier censuses.”