SpeechHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): I'm not sure I'm going to get a response out of the Minister to these comments but I'm working very hard on the possibility that I have misunderstood clause 22. I know that possibility is remote but I do draw the Minister's attention to the fact that in support of my contention that the collection of data for research purposes is mandatory clause 33(3) says No individual or organisation may specify conditions on which data is provided by the individual or organisation to the Statistician as described in section 22(c)(i) for the production of official statistics."  and "(4) No public sector agency may specify conditions on which data is provided". So we've got all of these clauses around the conditions the ability for information for research to be supplied with conditions and basically the Statistician can turn around and say that there no conditions. We still don't have a clause that says it's voluntary—which is what the Minister told the committee. It would be a really simple amendment. He could support my amendment to just simply say it's voluntary.I want to move to Subpart 4 and this is a very important part of Part 3 of this bill because it goes to the census in 2023. This needs a little bit of a preamble Mr Chair so I'll trust you'll indulge me before I get to point I'm going to make. And that is that when the Minister came before the select committee in February I think it was 13 February I asked him about whether the Government was thinking about delaying Census 2023 and his response which is on the official transcript was almost theoretical: "Oh yeah well you know we might give that some thought." What we now know from Official Information Act requests is that they have been thinking about that for 2½ months maybe longer and there was a very high level of concern that the debacle of 2018 was going to be repeated and that they wouldn't be ready for a 2023 census and how they are going to give themselves that power. Because this bill basically said when it was introduced that a census had to take place. It originally said that Statistician must take a census of population and dwellings in 2023 and every fifth year after that. So we quizzed the officials about what's going on. We got some fairly muted responses I have to say until a draft amendment to the bill turned up at the end of March and it basically said—a simple change—that the Statistician must take a census of populations and dwellings in New Zealand in 2023 or 2024. That's all it said—no real fanfare. The ability to just kick the can down the road for 12 months or more as much as 20 months was just sort of slipped into the bill. Colleagues will recall that after the February Canterbury earthquakes in 2011 it was necessary for the previous Government to move quite quickly to delay the census because it simply wasn't possible to conduct a census in those conditions. What did that previous Government have to do? It had to change primary legislation. It had to come back to the House and lay out its case for why the census would need to be delayed and it needed to get the support of Parliament. And it needed to appropriate some funds because delaying the census comes at a not insignificant cost.What we have in clause 34(1) is completely different and I don't accept that the committee of the whole House is scrutinising the conditions that could lead to a delay in Census 2023 in the manner in which it occurred 10 or 11 years ago. This is very important because Official Information Act documents that were provided to me definitely showed that Stats NZ staff were very worried about this and also were trying to find a way in which a legal power could be granted. Simply putting an amendment into the bill was probably a eureka moment—for an official to say "All we have to do is change the bill and we'll slip it through and Bob's your uncle." They gave other options which was to have a more belts and braces enduring ability to suspend a census in certain circumstances and those certain circumstances were laid out in information provided to the Minister and they're actually contained in my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). There are four: a national state of emergency an unreasonable level of risk to public health and safety—which of course a pandemic may constitute—an unreasonable level of risk to Stats New Zealand staff and civil unrest. There is none of that in the bill. So it was thought about and officials basically said "Oh we'd need to do significant policy work." Well I'm not so sure that's the case. They came up with four very good reasons why you might want to delay the census. I'm not quite sure how much more policy work needs to be done. It seems like a solution by a contractor looking for a problem.So there are two really key things to my SOP and I'll just remind the committee of what one is and that is the Government Statistician should not be given the power to just make that call and that's what the bill we're considering will do—it doesn't have any caveats whatsoever. It just says that for next year or the year after the Government Statistician makes that call. I don't think that's a decision that should be delegated to the Statistician. I think it should be given to the Minister and the Minister should make a comprehensive consultation with the public about why that's necessary. It's the Minister who decides it's the Minister who is part of the Government that is voted in by the public and is accountable to the public. The Statistician isn't. Also a delay should occur following public consultation and should be done only for one or more of the following reasons: a national state of emergency an unreasonable level of risk to public health and safety an unreasonable level of risk to the health and safety of staff employed by Stats New Zealand or civil unrest. That's it.Here's what's not on that list: risk of political embarrassment and the risk that six months out from the 2023 election we have a debacle the way we did with the ham-fisted 2018 census. They can say whatever they like; the documents that I've seen and the public statements that the Minister has made suggest to me that he is going to take a paper to Cabinet recommending the delay of the census until 2024 and that that will be a decision the Government Statistician makes if this bill is passed. So the Minister will be able to do two things: say "That's the Statistician's decision not mine." and then blame the public. Because all of the public statements he's made on the question of Census 2023 say "We may not have it not because the Government's not ready but because the public aren't ready." They weren't able to do a dry run in the Eastern Bay of Plenty in the midst of a pandemic and that's fair enough. There was probably quite significant reluctance on behalf of the public to having strangers knocking on doors and chatting to them even with masks on. But that was a long time ago and we're still nine or 10 months away from Census 2023. I don't believe that's going to be a reason for the census to be delayed. Definitely political embarrassment six months out from an election is not a reason for the census to be delayed so I'm commending Supplementary Order Paper 156 to the Minister—in fact I'm doing the Ministers' job. The Stats New Zealand staff did—they came up with a better framework than simply just giving the Government Statistician a chance to kick the can down the road. We know any delay will come at a significant cost so this House does need to be involved at some point. Maybe a ministerial statement would be sufficient but he'll have to appropriate for that change and we need some transparency around what the cost of that will be. But we just can't have a public servant going "Nah I don't think we're ready. We'll just delay it for a year." That's not what robust public policy-making should be and if colleagues agree they must support SOP 156."