11. Question No. 11—StatisticsDr JIAN YANG (National) to the Minister of StatisticsQuestion No. 11—Statistics11. Dr JIAN YANG (National) to the Minister of Statistics: Does he have confidence in the Chief Statistician in relation to her decisions about releasing information regarding Census 2018 to the Governance and Administration Committee?Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Statistics): Yes.Dr Jian Yang: Does he stand by the chief statistician's decisions to refuse to release the partial response rate for Census 2018 which is included in the overall 90 percent response rate released by Statistics New Zealand?SPEAKER: Order! I'm not sure that that question's in order given the fact that it's been done.Dr Jian Yang: Sorry Mr Speaker I'm asking about the release of information—that the chief statistician declined to release information.SPEAKER: So apparently she declined in a public session but my understanding is that she subsequently provided the information. Is that right? Is the chair of the Governance and Administration Committee here? That's correct?Brett Hudson: That is correct.Dr Jian Yang: That's correct but this is about the previous actions.SPEAKER: OK. All right. Fine.Dr Jian Yang: Shall I repeat the question? I'll repeat the question.SPEAKER: Yeah if you want to.Dr Jian Yang: Does he stand by the chief statistician's decisions to refuse to release the partial response rate for Census 2018 which is included in the overall 90 percent response rate released by Statistics New Zealand?Hon JAMES SHAW: Yes.Dr Jian Yang: Can he confirm that the partial responses to Census 2018 were more than double that of 2013 and that in total one in seven or 700000 New Zealanders either did not fully complete or partially completed the census?Hon JAMES SHAW: That is a question for the Government Statistician who as he should be aware has statutory independence about the management of statistics. The Government Statistician—[Interruption] Actually for Opposition members who seem to be weighing in on this I'd just like to refer them to responses to questions in the House by the Rt Hon Bill English who said [this Government] refrains from attacking the impartiality of the Government Statistician." "we accept that the Government Statistician is statutorily independent." and "We have our own arguments with how numbers are put together but in the end that is why they are independent."Dr Jian Yang: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question's very simple: can he confirm or not whether the partial response rate or the number of partial responses—SPEAKER: Well the member very clearly indicated that he wasn't going to confirm that.Dr Jian Yang: Is he concerned that the quality of Census 2018 data may be compromised due to the extremely low overall response rate which also includes a high percentage of people who did not fully complete the census?Hon JAMES SHAW: I am always concerned that the quality of Government data and statistics is of the highest possible quality and that is why Statistics New Zealand have delayed the initial release of census information. It is to ensure that the quality of information that gets released as a result of Census 2018—Hon Gerry Brownlee: They're making it up.Hon JAMES SHAW: —is at least as high as in previous censuses. In response to the interjection just now about making it up may I refer Mr Brownlee who I think was the interjector to a 27 October 2015 Cabinet paper recommending that Statistics New Zealand "be directed to actively work towards a future census based primarily on government administrative data supported by redevelopment of its household surveys." This is precisely information that Mr Brownlee believes is now being made up and if he believes that then he should not have signed off that Cabinet paper in 2015.Dr Jian Yang: Does he still stand by his statement in response to my concerns last year in April over the conduct of the census that this census was more successful than previous censuses?Hon JAMES SHAW: Well as I have said in answer to previous questions on exactly this in the House before I was referring then to questions about the online component of the census. There was a target that 70 percent of responses would be completed online. That is also outlined in the previous Government's business case for the census signed off in 2014 and in this Cabinet paper signed off in 2015. Actually the response rate online was significantly above the 70 percent target. So the previous Government's decision to switch to a primarily online census appears to have been very successful and he should congratulate the former Cabinet Ministers who were members of that Government which made that decision."