Stats NZ staff will be sent out to properties if no responses are received from them. Photo: Stats NZ
Stats NZ is underwhelmed that just one million New Zealanders have filled in the census so far.
The country's biggest survey is underway with the official Census Day taking place tomorrow.
Deputy chief executive census and collections operations Simon Mason told First Up the 1m mark was reached late last night.
He had hoped for more responses by now.
"[It's] good, we'd like to probably have seen a bit more... Still plenty of time for people to do their censuses and there'll be time after that to submit it."
Mason said Census Day teams were reaching out to people who needed help completing the survey.
People could ring the helpline (0800 236 787) to get advice on any questions they had or to ask for paper forms.
Cyclone Gabrielle had delivered a late hiccup with organisation of this year's census, Mason said.
Some questions remained on exactly how information would be collected in some regions.
For those in the areas hardest hit "a community approach" was being provided especially for those who had lost their homes.
"We don't want to add an extra burden to them ... Sending a collector to somebody's house when they don't have a mailbox and they don't even have a house isn't the right thing to do and not the right experience for those New Zealanders who have been badly affected."
On Monday evening, Mason told Checkpoint there had been a surge in responses throughout the day, with about another 100,000 as of 5.30pm.
There was a target of 90 percent returned forms, he said.
"For this Census... we've really looked at what are the barriers and tried to minimize those where they've existed, particularly in the disabled space, there's easy print, large print forms available, there's lots more supporting materials online."
Supporting materials in 26 different languages were available.
Questions in the census were updated periodically and new questions added when needed, he said.
"Really what goes in to the new questions is how does society need to be reflected, so some of our sex and gender questions are really reflective of our society as it is now and helps those people, particularly in the rainbow community, identify themselves in the data."
'We've really looked at what are the barriers and tried to minimize those where they've existed' - Deputy chief executive census and collections operations Simon Mason
The government has agreed to an extra eight weeks for the responses to be gathered from the worst affected areas of the country.
Around 1.5 million people residents received two forms in the post as part of Stats NZ's efforts to be more helpful and pro-active this time round after criticism of the way the 2018 census was handled, he said.
Some people were expressing their opposition to the census on social media and saying they would not participate.
Other social media users were pointing out that it was an opportunity for citizens to tell the government what their situation was and to gain support for their needs.
"It's really good to see some of that come through as well."
Staff would be sent out to properties if no responses were received from them, Mason said.
"Still plenty of time for people to do their censuses" Deputy chief executive census and collections operations Simon Mason