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Population statistics and projections are our most reliable indicator of things to come. The greater variability and volatility of demographic, social, economic and environmental change has increased the difficulty of planning for whatever mix of people will live here in the future, and for monitoring their quality of life.

Recent governments have acted in reactionary ways to population change, as various issues rise to prominence. A national population policy would at the least raise consciousness across society and establish a common basis for engagement and accountability. Across Parliament, the need for this policy is unlikely to be initiated without some external crisis, which perhaps the coming fiscal gap will deliver.

I cannot recall any time over the past 50 years when the scope and quality of population statistics have been of such importance in public life in New Zealand. Such a need has been highlighted in public reports by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, the Infrastructure Commission, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, the Ministry for Pacific Peoples and the Auditor-General, among others.

The recent suggestions that Ministers may choose to cease funding the fiveyearly censuses of population that have long underpinned public policy, planning and accountability has expanded interest in the system of population statistics itself, and recent failures with population censuses in 2018 and 2023, have been a stimulus for this.

Brief Biography of Len Cook
Len Cook became Government Statistician of New Zealand, from 1992 to 2000. From 2000 to 2005 he was National Statistician of the United Kingdom and Registrar-General of England and Wales. He joined the Department of Statistics after graduating in Mathematics and Statistics from Otago University in 1971.

Len is a Companion of the Royal Society Te Apārangi (CRSNZ).

Past appointments include: Commissioner, Royal Commission on Social Policy, (1987-1988), Member of Secretariat, Task Force on Tax Reform (1981), Chair, Medical Training Board, (2007-2009), Chair of Board and Families Commissioner, Superu/ Families Commission (2015 - 2018) and Research Associate since 2006 at Te Ngira, University of Waikato.

His continuing interests are in the areas of population change and public policy, public administration, retirement provision, imprisonment patterns, official statistics, and the place of science in policy. His personal interests include fly fishing.

How New Zealand’s changing demographics will play out, and the possible consequences.

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