Yang JianDr JIAN YANG (National): It's interesting to listen to the previous speaker Jo Luxton There is more—there is more." There is more. There are more disasters. Now this Government is abandoning its flagship its KiwiBuild. Now forget about KiwiBuild. This is supposed to be the year of delivery but it is quickly turning into a year of non-delivery.Look at the census Census 2018. It's a disaster an absolute disaster the worst-ever census in New Zealand's history. I'm pleased that Minister Shaw is here. I'm not sure whether you have read my report but it doesn't matter. I'm going to give you a very brief summary of my report. Now the importance of a census is obvious. Everyone knows that the census is particularly important to us. Billions of dollars are at stake. Many Government departments rely on census data to make their Budget decisions. It's very important. Now we know that the response rate of Census 2018 was 90 percent—90 percent. It dropped 4.5 percent from census 2013. People have been alarmed by the drop but the reality is even worse actually much worse. Why? Because Statistics New Zealand changed the definition of "response" for Census 2018. Now the definition includes those who are listed on census dwelling forms but did not submit census individual forms. In the past these people were counted as non-responses but this census Census 2018 counted those who were listed on dwelling forms but did not submit individual forms. If we used the past definition the response rate of Census 2018 would drop to 85 percent—not 90 percent; 85 percent. That means that over 700000 New Zealanders did not participate at all or only are listed on the census dwelling form. Kieran McAnulty: Whose idea was that?Dr JIAN YANG: Exactly a good question: who should be responsible for that? The current Government failed at the very final stage of the census. OK. In the crucial stages surrounding census day this Government failed to lead in that sense. Now we'll come to this later—we'll come to this later. Now I asked Statistics New Zealand about the change of definition: when did they change the definition? They declined to answer my question. I repeated it four times at the hearing. They declined to answer my question. Similarly I asked about the partial response rate—I asked about the partial response rate. I asked what was the partial response rate and they declined to answer my question and then said "Oh I can't remember." OK. Then I followed up with a routine question in the name of the committee the Governance and Administration Committee—right? Still they declined to answer the question. They finally released the partial response rate after facing a potential parliamentary contempt complaint from Dr Nick Smith. They did so only after that potential complaint. So this is the Government which has done this absolutely miserable job but attempted to hide the fact. How can we trust the accuracy of census data when 15 percent of New Zealanders either did not answer at all the questions or gave very very little information in the census? So this is a particular concern to us.Also timeliness is a big concern because by the time the full census data is released it would be by mid-year next year—almost one year after the first deadline. So by then the data would be outdated. Now this is an organisational debacle right? The census access codes were sent out very late. People had to request paper forms and when they requested the forms actually the 0800 number did not work properly. So it was an absolute shambles and the Minister did not really take leadership. He was out of the country on census day. There was only one single press release about the census—no encouragement for people to take part in the census."