10. Census 2018—Data Collection Access and ParticipationDr JIAN YANG (National) to the Minister of StatisticsCensus 2018—Data Collection Access and Participation10. Dr JIAN YANG (National) to the Minister of Statistics: Does he have confidence in Statistics New Zealand?Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Statistics): Yes I do and so should he.Dr Jian Yang: What is his response to reports that some houses in the Coromandel area were deliberately missed with census fieldworkers advised not to bother with some hard-to-reach properties"?Hon JAMES SHAW: Statistics New Zealand has assured me that field teams were instructed to visit all the households on their lists and to record any challenges including any safety concerns with visiting a property so that a decision could be made by their team leader about further follow-up. For this year's census field officers had new processes to follow to support the collection of data from every household. Field officers completed nearly one million visits over seven weeks of follow-up across the country. Dr Jian Yang: What is his response to Northland District Health Board's chief executive who said access to the census for Northland has been a big issue and that "Lots of people never received their access code which means the whole campaign could have been a waste of time."?Hon JAMES SHAW: Well I do understand how important census data is for calculating the distribution of health funds. However as I've said in answers to previous questions Statistics New Zealand is still working through the census reconciliation process and will not be in a position to make an announcement about census response and coverage rates until after they have completed this work. The initial release of data is likely to be in March of next year. I want to stress that I do have full confidence in our national statistics agency and in the work that they are doing on the census. While the response rate in this census appears to be lower than was planned for Statistics New Zealand will make use of reliable Government data to fill in any gaps. The use of administrative data was a core part of the future census strategy that the previous National Government signed off on in 2014.Dr Jian Yang: What is his response to census fieldworkers who said "There was a complete sense of panic towards the end that it hadn't worked out like the Government hoped."?Hon JAMES SHAW: As I said in response to the previous supplementary question fieldworkers who had worked on the census in previous censuses who also worked on this census did have to change their methodology and that involved for some of them some discomfort because they had been used to previous processes.Dr Jian Yang: Is he concerned that the problems and historic low participation rate of Census 2018 will result in an inaccurate picture of New Zealand's population particularly for rural Māori and ethnic communities?Hon JAMES SHAW: As I have said in answers to previous supplementaries on this and in response to previous questions in the House by Dr Nick Smith while the response rate in the census appears to be lower than planned for Statistics New Zealand will make use of reliable Government data to fill in any gaps. The use of administrative data was a core part of the future census strategy that the previous Government signed off on in 2014."