Statistics New Zealand - History

History

In the nation's early days, with a small population and before the advent of powered transportation and modern telecommunications, there was little need for statistics nor ability to create them. In the colonial years, sometimes magistrates and police officials collected data as part of their work. After about the 1890s, the official information source presented to the public was called the New Zealand Official Yearbook compiled from various departments. Sometimes data about animals were collected (a census of poultry ceased in 1971); one census taker on horseback drowned while crossing a river. In 1956, the newly-created Department of Statistics had 164 employees. Tabulating techniques improved. One source writes: "As both New Zealand's population and the complexity of the information sought grew, so did the size of the army of temporary clerks that was employed every five years by the Census and Statistics Office to process it. Sitting at long tables in large draughty or cramped rooms, they laboriously added, subtracted and calculated percentages. From the 1890s census data was written on cards which were sorted by hand. The drudgery of statistical work was gradually eased as adding and calculating machines and typewriters came into use, operated mostly by women. Tabulating machines were imported from the United States in the 1920s to process punched cards; this too was women's work," according to a book written by David Green in 2002. The agency grew in size. Tabulating machines were replaced by mainframe computers, then microcomputers, then the Internet. "Since the early 1980s computing has been done in-house, and in the 1990s personal computers and the Internet revolutionised the day-to-day experience of work at Statistics New Zealand," according to Green's book.

Management positions have changed over time as well. The post of Government Statistician was created in 1910 within the Registrar-General's Office, before a separate Census and Statistics Office was set up in 1913. Before 1910 most statistics for the colony or dominion as a whole were the responsibility of the Registrar-General himself.

The well-regarded economist J.B. Condliffe worked at the agency after First World War, but no fully qualified mathematicians until after the Second, when in-house training in statistical methods also began. Since 1910, the post of Government Statistician has been held by different persons. From 1955 until 1994 the agency was known as the Department of Statistics until the name was changed to the current one.

Government Statisticians

• 1910 – 1911: W.M. Wright
• 1911 – 1932: Malcolm Fraser
• 1932 – 1946: James Butcher
• 1946 – 1958: George Wood
• 1958 – 1969: John V.T. Baker
• 1969 – 1973: John P. Lewin
• 1973 – 1980: E.A. Harris
• 1980 – 1984: John Darwin
• 1984 – 1992: Steve Kuzmicich
• 1992 – 1999: Len Cook
• 1999 – 2007: Brian Pink
• 2007 – : Geoff Bascand

The agency has grown in size and sophistication from its early beginnings. As times change, information needs change accordingly. For example, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, politicians became interested in the concept of sustainable development. The agency found ways to measure these trends to provide helpful information for planners. In August 2002, it published its first report on Sustainable Development Indicators, which measured variables such as water quality, energy usage, sustainability of cities, and youth development. Environment Minister Marian Hobbs said in 2003 "...the growth we have must be sustained over a number of generations. Therefore, we need to plan for that growth so that we don't add to our problems." As the department moves into the future, and if the past is an indication of the future, it is likely to continue its trajectory of larger size, more responsibility, increased technical sophistication via Internet and broadband tools.

The 2011 national census was cancelled due to the disruption and displacement of people caused by the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. The census has been rescheduled for 5 March 2013.