Sat 7 Jun 2008 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
Statistics New Zealand has announced that no new topics will be introduced into New Zealand's next Census in 2011, so the possibility of gaining more quantitative information on the country's LGBT communities a slim one. There are also no plans to count numbers of transgender or intersex New Zealanders - with the options for gender identity shown as just 'Male' or 'Female'. Statistics New Zealand has invited public feedback on questions to be included in the next Census, but explain that their strategy for the 2011 Census of Population and Dwellings is for "minimal change to survey content and the questionnaires in order to emphasise data quality and maintain consistency". Only limited changes to existing topics will be considered. Statistics New Zealand investigated the possibility of including a question on sexual orientation as part of the most recent Census in 2006, but abandoned the idea for a number of reasons including privacy concerns, public backlash, and difficulty in defining how the question should be worded. The 2006 Census collected data on same-sex and opposite-sex couples that live together and in civil union couples. Statistics New Zealand intends to continue to collect this data, however are considering changes to help respondents better understand the question, because 2006's civil union figures were "of very poor quality", says the Ministry of Social Development's Gabi Rosenstreich. "Many more people ticked the box than had registered a civil union," she explains. 3,516 female couples and 2,655 male couples responded that they were living together on Census night in March 2006. No other information has ever been collected in New Zealand's five-yearly Census about gay, lesbian, bisexual, fa'afafine, takataapui, intersex, transgender and transsexual people, or the size of this group of people in relation to the total population. However, Statistics New Zealand says it is considering conducting research into sexual orientation data collection later this year, addressing issues such as information needs priorities, public acceptability and methodological problems. "We anticipate that the findings from this research will provide significant assistance for future survey design. It also aims to generate some useful core demographic information on gay, lesbian and bisexual populations by conducting statistical modelling on existing official statistics data sets," the statisticians say. The number-crunchers also state that since the populations of transgender and intersex people are small, and information gathering on those groups is still in its infancy, there are no plans to move beyond a collection of 'male' / 'female' data in the next Census. "From our perspective in GLBTI Policy, we hope to learn a lot in the research on sexual orientation data collection that can contribute to the development of an approach to gender identity data collection that is both appropriate and robust," explains Rosenstreich. "That, together with some first international attempts to collect quantitative gender identity data in surveys and NZ initiatives arising from the Human Rights Commission's Transgender Inquiry, will hopefully provide us with a firmer basis to work from in future around collecting gender identity data in generic surveys." Further information about research and submissions on New Zealand's 2011 Census is available on the link below.