The recent announcement by the government that the Census will cease in 2028 has been met with various reactions. Māori statisticians and academics with memberships and affiliations to Te Mana Raraunga and Iwi Leaders Data Group in particular are warning of issues for Māori and Iwi.
As a Māori technologist/governor with Data and AI, I argue, that if we take a fresh look at this from a Te Ao Māori and Te Tiriti lens, then the cancellation of the census creates a myriad of new opportunities for all of Māori which, will then benefit for all of New Zealand.
Background
Considering the census is not based on tikanga and is another colonial tool that has been used, for and against Māori wellbeing. Cancelling the census is a new opportunity to reset this dilemma and work towards a new solution that will benefit all New Zealanders.
Noting that the current regime has not worked in the past 174 years and in particular the past decade when we have had the status of Māori Data Sovereignty realised and the past 4 years a mana Ōrite agreements with Iwi and StatsNZ and DIA costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, then a change of strategy could be beneficial to everyone.
Ka Pu te Ruha – Ka Hao te Rangatahi
When the old net is cast aside, the new net goes fishing.
The 2018 census had the poorest inputs in history that resulted in the need to use other data from government. The poor uptake was likely due to multiple social reasons that likely impact everyone including: busy lifestyles, mistrust, lack of time, fear, etc. But it does show that there is an issue with the old system and that this evolutionary thinking by Minister Shane Reti is an opportunity to embrace current resources and new technologies.
New Technology
Firstly, we must consider that technology has increased exponentially (Moores Law) including data storage and analysis. Moreover, that recent research indicates that approximately 90% of the world’s data has been generated within the past two years, and according to IDC, the volume of data stored globally is doubling approximately every four years.
According to Riverly, as of 2024, the global data volume stands at 149 zettabytes (trillion gigabytes). This growth reflects the increasing digitization of global activities, from consumer applications to industrial operations, including demand for real-time analytics, automation, and efficient data storage solutions, and underscores the need for advanced storage solutions and robust data governance frameworks to manage this unprecedented scale of information.
Add to this, the recent introduction of Generative Artificial Intelligence that has changed the way we analyse and use data must also be taken into consideration. We are in the midst of a generative Artificial Intelligence (r)evolution. This new technology is designed specifically to address mass amounts of data and to analyse and produce new data at lightening speeds we have never seen before.
We have a Science and Technology minister, Judith Collins, who is promoting more implementation and use of AI, and this is a perfect opportunity to do just that, create more beneficial results for government with less tax payer funding, that can be shared with Māori organisations, hapū and Iwi.
Another issue is that all of government (local and central) create and store large amounts of data, but due to poor data governance practices relating to Māori, Disabled and other minority groups that form New Zealand society, including almost 100% of local government and about 60% of central government (research will be published later this year) government organisations often do not know what data they have.
The New Zealand Government know more about Māori than Māori know about themselves. Iwi Data Group, 2023.
For Māori, this equates to no reasonable mechanisms to share data with Māori organisations, hapū and Iwi, nor with relevant government agencies in order to better reflect Māori needs that the census attempts to achieve. Regardless of a census or not, there are massive data governance issues that need to be addressed first that have not been addressed in the past. Ceasing the Census could be the change that is required for a vision and resource reset.
Te Ao Māori
Prior to colonisation, Māori society were made up of hapū (clans) with a detailed hierarchy of leadership, property boundaries, and rights allocated to each family/social class and individuals. The Hapū did not need a census as it knew its own people and those of their kinship clans who made up the larger group who had direct ancestral connection to an ancestor, this is how we typically have iwi names now. This is sovereignty and it has eroded over time due to colonisation and the loss of tikanga.
Before New Zealand had its first census in 1851, Ngāi Tahu Iwi in the South Island recognised the impacts of colonisation and urbanisation and the breakdown of hapū knowledge of their people. As a result, in 1848 Ngāi Tahu conducted its own census. Each person of Ngāi Tahu descent were verified as being Ngāi Tahu and importantly, they also recorded their hapū and other genealogical data, today resulting in one of only two public list of hapū names about Ngāi Tahu.
That same data is still used today to recognise people who can legitimately claim membership (whakapapa) to the tribe that is now worth over 1.5 billion dollars with a myriad of benefits to its approximate 85,000 members. If a person who is registering can not show a direct connection to an ancestor in 1848 census, they can not register with the tribe.
As a result of colonisation and the Ngāi Tahu treaty settlement, the original hapū and two other tribes that were largely assimilated into Ngāi Tahu (Ngāti Māmoe and Waitaha) were grouped into 18 tribal councils (rūnanga) who assumed the traditional roles of the 140 plus hapū of Ngāi Tahu.
Each of these rūnanga are now collecting data about their members, reflective of the traditional societal hierarchy where the hapū had rangatiratanga (authority) over their members. Also, many Iwi authorities also have their own health/financial/education/social arms, etc, that collect massive amounts of data about their members.
Had Ngāi Tahu hadn’t completed their own census in 1848, we can only speculate at the issues the tribe would have with registrations and historical accounts of hapū and land/resource disputes. I speculate that rūnanga may not have been able to be created and the Ngāi Tahu claim may have had a very different outcome.
Today, Ngāi Tahu like many other Iwi hold masses of digital data on each of their members. Ngāi Tahu is not unique. Many Iwi authorities have the infrastructure and resources to accumulate and build data on their own members and others are building that resource now.
We also know that each local and central government organisation also have masses of data on all New Zealanders. Many Iwi would like more data about their members and often engage with government groups to access this data. Due to privacy laws and poor data governance practices that do not recognise Māori, acknowledging, accessing and sharing Māori data is often not possible.
Te Tiriti o Waitangi
Te Tiriti o Waitangi is perhaps more widely acknowledged and spoken about in recent months than it has been for generations, due to the current political environment.
The support to oppose the Treaty Principals Bill saw the largest mass protest in New Zealand’s history with more than 100,000 people marching on parliament and over 300,000 submissions received in relation to the Treaty Principles Bill, 90% of which were against the proposed changes.
Now, we need to consider Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the end of the census.
- Article I (kawanatanga), Māori gave the British’, the right of governance.
- Article II (rangatiratanga) The Queen promises to uphold the authority that tribes had always had over their lands and taonga.
- Article III (equality and equity. the Queen agrees to give Māori the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England.
These articles have been summarised into three principles: “partnership, participation, and protection”
Article I and III gives the government social licence to use our data as it does with all New Zealand citizens. Article II, gives Māori the right to Māori Data Governance and partnerships, participation and to ensure our protection via outcomes of data analysis.
If all government agencies recognise Te Tiriti and implement the three principles by working with Māori organisations, hapū and Iwi, then free flowing data sharing agreements could be created to benefit Māori and to better direct tax payer funding where it is needed more, further negating the need for an expensive and intrusive census.
Iwi, hapū and Māori organisations have been trying to reclaim rangatiratanga of the health/wealth status data off their members and the data about the environment and its resources, in some cases for decades with several of the largest Iwi not been giving access to data.
Data and Statistics Act 2022
The Data and Statistics Act 2022 has an obligation for StatsNZ to consider Te Tiriti. This legislation is also part of the coalition governments plans are to review the Treaty sections and remove them.
This could put the Mana Ōrite agreement into question about being valid and a good use of tax payer money. Despite the Mana Ōrite agreement and the legislation including Te Tiriti statements, it is easily argued that the Census in its current state has breached Te Tiriti by ignoring Article II and making it illegal for Māori to not surrender their taonga (data) to the Crown.
Stats NZ surveys are a request under section 23 of the Data and Statistics Act 2022. Legally anyone who is asked to complete the survey has to answer all mandatory questions before the end of the collection period. Failing to answer the questions is an offence under section 76 of the Act and a conviction could lead to a fine of up to $2000 for an individual.
While StatsNZ states “Generally, we seek to prosecute only a small number of people – between 30 and 60 people – for refusing to take part in the census”, there is no data based on ethnicity of those who are prosecuted. But we can speculate that with no census, that Māori communities will have one less barrier to engaging with government and one less opportunity for bias and racism.
Surveillance
Māori statisticians have been using the following phrase in their media releases and engagements recently regarding the Census and Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) “Māori are over surveilled”. If this is correct and no one else is, then this would ensure that there is massive amounts of data that can be analysed and used to address bias data and research and to create benefits in place of the census.
The reality is, every single person in the world, New Zealand is no different, are increasingly having personal data collected about them via social media, government (NZ and international), branding companies, loyalty cards, CCT and a plethora of other means. Accepting that each induvial has very little privacy is a reality.
Every individual is over surveilled by governments, businesses, corporates and others. From the inception, the unborn child starts to be surveilled till the time a person dies, and even then the government still collects data about you and stores it for various periods of time.
Many Māori will either be a part of a family/community who avoid doing the census due to intergenerational mistrust of the government, despite is penalties and has consequences of prosecutions that can lead to a fine of up to $2,000.
It is also common for intergenerational Māori communities and families to simply not admit that they are Māori in the Census and other questionnaires.
We also know that some Māori may feel more comfortable giving their hapū, Māori organisation or maybe Iwi personal data than to the government, and likewise the some do not trust their iwi and hapū.
Solution
Good data governance practices need urgent implementation to allow both government and Māori to achieve better data with what already exists, and with what government is creating on a daily basis. The first wide issue is identifying Māori data, as simple as that sounds, most government organisations fail to do this.
Iwi and Māori partnerships will benefit all of New Zealand without the need for a census will then be viable.
International forecasts are that the role of statisticians will grow and change as AI is implemented. This creates new opportunities for Māori when applying AI and human skills. This needs to be further considered and implemented ensuring that any bias data and missing data can be resolved.
Implementing and adopting emerging technologies such as generative AI is required and the need to consider a New Zealand sovereign AI that can store, process and analyse data in New Zealand without the fear or risk of geo political interferences, Internet outages such as the risk New Zealand has with Internet under sea cables being cut eftpos and other outages caused by global companies technical issues.