The 2018 Census

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BDFL - Memuneh
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#1965826 28-Feb-2018 13:12

Geektastic:
floydbloke:

I'm genuinely surprised at the obstinateness and resistance of some posters here to participate in a pretty simple activity that comes around once every 5 years.

I also can't figure out whether these folk have privacy/security concerns, are exercising some form of rebellion, or some other reason.

I generally dislike bureaucracy on principle. Also I dislike the fact that they get to force me to do things yet when you want them to do something they habitually take forever, mess it up or demonstrate low competency.

And yet everyone wants the government to create a budget that accounts for every single child in the country, or every adult with a sickness, distribute money appropriately between different districts and councils.

People think nothing about giving their email addresses or phone number in exchange for an entry to a competition that they get via Facebook (the irony) but complain about the government trying to know more about the country they lead.

Like Americans complaining about their right to bear guns.

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UHD

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#1965828 28-Feb-2018 13:13

MikeAqua:

UHD:

MikeAqua:

I have my browsers configured to reject cookies. So I guess it won't be possible to compete the census.

I see you don't use much of the internet at all then.

I accept cookies for sites I want to stay logged into (e.g. GZ or NBR). Otherwise I generally browse in incognito mode.

This very rarely stops me from accessing anything I want to look at.

You should say that you configure your browser to reject cookies except from a whitelist of sites you choose to accept them from then instead of blanket claiming to reject all cookies while somehow remaining logged in to GZ. xD

Upon reading your other comments here I am all for you trying to tell a judge that you refuse to accept the Census site's cookie as well as demanding minimum wage for 5 minutes' effort. That will make a hell of a read in the Herald.

MikeAqua

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#1965838 28-Feb-2018 13:23

frankv:

MikeAqua:

Pay me minimum wage for my time and I have no objection. Time cannot be replaced

I don't see the point. Pay you (say) $5 to complete the form. That money has to come from somewhere, so taxes go up and you're no better off. But administering that payment and all the the stuff that goes with it would at least quadruple the cost.

Legal minimum is three hours work, which is more like $50. For compulsory business surveys pay 1 hour at the respondent's bill rate. In particular, I feel sorry for hotels, what a nightmare the census must be to deal with for them.

$200m for the whole country (cheaper if govt keeps the youth wage) plus say 10% for admin costs. I bet the census would become a whole lot less important if the government suddenly had to shell out quarter of billion each time.

Or make it non-compulsory. You don't need to survey the entire population. Most of the field of statistics is built around working with a sample. Indeed many of StatsNZs surveys use small samples. For example the household economic one.

Mike

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#1966193 28-Feb-2018 23:57

I guess the most meaningful statistic they can glean from a 100% sample is the rate of idiots per capita.

lokhor

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#1966217 1-Mar-2018 06:38

MikeAqua:

frankv:

MikeAqua:

Pay me minimum wage for my time and I have no objection. Time cannot be replaced

I don't see the point. Pay you (say) $5 to complete the form. That money has to come from somewhere, so taxes go up and you're no better off. But administering that payment and all the the stuff that goes with it would at least quadruple the cost.

Legal minimum is three hours work, which is more like $50. For compulsory business surveys pay 1 hour at the respondent's bill rate. In particular, I feel sorry for hotels, what a nightmare the census must be to deal with for them.

$200m for the whole country (cheaper if govt keeps the youth wage) plus say 10% for admin costs. I bet the census would become a whole lot less important if the government suddenly had to shell out quarter of billion each time.

Or make it non-compulsory. You don't need to survey the entire population. Most of the field of statistics is built around working with a sample. Indeed many of StatsNZs surveys use small samples. For example the household economic one.

I did some customer research/persona work for Stats NZ interviewing their respondents a few years ago and hotel owners did not like Census at all. They were fine with completing other surveys, but doing the census was such a hassle for them every time.

All comments are my own opinion, and not that of my employer unless explicitly stated.

Batman

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#1966226 1-Mar-2018 07:15

tdgeek:

eracode: @Geektastic. There’s more to a census than just determining the population of the country. But you know that, kidder.

Not having a census is like running a business and not doing any financial accounts. You have to do financial accounts for tax purposes but they have a massive level of value. The numbers and past numbers tell a lot of valuable stories. Same with a census

would be good if they used that to plan healthcare, infrastructure, schools, jedi councils, etc, but i doubt it.

tdgeek

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#1966228 1-Mar-2018 07:19

Batman:

tdgeek:

eracode: @Geektastic. There’s more to a census than just determining the population of the country. But you know that, kidder.

Not having a census is like running a business and not doing any financial accounts. You have to do financial accounts for tax purposes but they have a massive level of value. The numbers and past numbers tell a lot of valuable stories. Same with a census

would be good if they used that to plan healthcare, infrastructure, schools, jedi councils, etc, but i doubt it.

Off course they do. Mainly Jedi Councils, but the others too. Assuming you are referring to the lack of action in these areas, that's down to money. Any NZ Govt doesn't have enough money (from us the taxpayer) to pay for everything at once. Now if we took over the state of Brunei.......

pom532

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#1966229 1-Mar-2018 07:22

MikeAqua:

floydbloke:

I'm genuinely surprised at the obstinateness and resistance of some posters here to participate in a pretty simple activity that comes around once every 5 years.

I also can't figure out whether these folk have privacy/security concerns, are exercising some form of rebellion, or some other reason.

My basic objection is two fold:-

1) That people are forced to provide information (without consent) and then that information is made available for all manner of research activity, by all manner of third parties. From a research perspective I see that as unethical.

2) Stats sells info that they gain by compulsion. Stats force citizens and companies to undertake unpaid work to create value for Stats. I see that as highly unethical. Pay me minimum wage for my time and I have no objection. Time cannot be replaced

Another observation - the level of detailed information being collected is getting creepy. I generally object to people sticking their snout into my business. In particular I object if the interest is from an organisation.

Govt agencies have been shown repeatedly and publicly to be poor custodians of private info. Why would stats be any different?

Stats NZ actually go way overboard with respect to privacy. With the data that is made public, whether by them or a researcher, they want it randomly rounded to 3. Plus there are many hurdles to accessing the anonymised data

Batman

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#1966230 1-Mar-2018 07:22

tdgeek: Now if we took over the state of Brunei.......

Then we will install a King who will take all your money, instead of the Directors and CEOs.

Batman

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#1966233 1-Mar-2018 07:25

tdgeek:

Off course they do. Mainly Jedi Councils, but the others too. Assuming you are referring to the lack of action in these areas, that's down to money. Any NZ Govt doesn't have enough money (from us the taxpayer) to pay for everything at once. Now if we took over the state of Brunei.......

From my observation, they collect information, someone accesses the information 3 years later, hires a working group, gets a report 2 years later, starts planning - by the time which the data is 5 years old, and once they complete their "improvement", they are 10 years behind, and then everybody is patting themselves on the back. that's how I see things being done.

dwilson

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#1966275 1-Mar-2018 08:21

Batman:

tdgeek:

Off course they do. Mainly Jedi Councils, but the others too. Assuming you are referring to the lack of action in these areas, that's down to money. Any NZ Govt doesn't have enough money (from us the taxpayer) to pay for everything at once. Now if we took over the state of Brunei.......

From my observation, they collect information, someone accesses the information 3 years later, hires a working group, gets a report 2 years later, starts planning - by the time which the data is 5 years old, and once they complete their "improvement", they are 10 years behind, and then everybody is patting themselves on the back. that's how I see things being done.

As long as our species has not hit it's ceiling with it's ability to improve those processes, we'll continue to see them improve. But having an inefficient process is a lot better than no process, it's a stepping stone to getting stuff done. Thankfully we have people trying to do better.

Which is a darn sight better than the 'Category A: Grouchy old man, acting like a child' or the 'Category B: Strange young guy refusing too participate, just because stuff' techniques, where different groups of people stubbornly argue about filling in a 5 minute census. Both of which are firmly on display in this thread.

One Category A chap in this thread has 8 posts wondering where his envelope is, talking about post boxes and scratching his head, it's almost like he is too obtuse to pick up a phone and sort out a very minor problem. He's spent an hour writing posts about not wanting to spend 5 minutes doing a census. Talk about a person with poor judgement.

I've had years of experience working directly with local government for example in a consultancy role, I was routinely frustrated by how inefficient they are, or how poor there decision making skills are. But it doesn't change a thing, we must continue to try improve. The alternative is unacceptable.

frankv

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#1966278 1-Mar-2018 08:28

Batman:

From my observation, they collect information, someone accesses the information 3 years later, hires a working group, gets a report 2 years later, starts planning - by the time which the data is 5 years old, and once they complete their "improvement", they are 10 years behind, and then everybody is patting themselves on the back. that's how I see things being done.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't collect the data... it means that we should improve the responsiveness of the system. If we didn't collect the data, we'd be making "improvements" based on guesses and the entrails of goats.

MikeAqua

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#1966281 1-Mar-2018 08:32

pom532:

Stats NZ actually go way overboard with respect to privacy. With the data that is made public, whether by them or a researcher, they want it randomly rounded to 3. Plus there are many hurdles to accessing the anonymised data

I still don't trust them not to at some stage make mistakes.

But setting that aside the compulsion and intrusiveness still bother me. Also the time used by me to do their work for them can never be replaced. There are many things I would rather do with that time and it is my time.

Mike