Stats NZ investigating potential misuse of Māori census data

Sunday, 2 June 2024

A Te Pāti Māori MP and the marae she once ran are at the centre of claims that private information collected during the census was used for political campaigning.

Stats NZ, the Government’s official data agency, is now investigating after a whistleblower from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) came forward with a series of allegations relating to Manurewa Marae.

The whistleblower also laid a complaint with police last week.

Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp stood down as the marae’s chief executive last year after narrowly beating incumbent Labour MP Peeni Henare by only 42 votes in the election's Tāmaki Makaurau race.

The urban marae was part of a Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency drive to promote last year’s census, between March and June last year.

It then became a polling booth at last year’s general election, a controversial decision because of Kemp’s candidacy for the Māori seat.

Te Pāti Māori strongly denies the claim that census data was mis-used.

The probe comes as a number of former marae workers have alleged that:

• Hundreds of census forms collected by marae staff were photocopied and retained; and data from the forms such as personal contact details, household occupancy and birth dates was entered into an online database and sent to the Waipareira Trust. Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere runs the social services charity and is chief executive of Whānau Ora, and denies this.

• They believe that information was then used to target Māori electorate voters in the Tāmaki Makaurau electorate.

• They also allege that Marae staff who delivered census forms also included enrolment forms for voters to change from the general to the Māori roll.

Further allegations are that:

• Participants were given $100 supermarket vouchers, wellness packs or food parcels to induce them to complete the forms.

• Visitors to the marae last year were also given $100 supermarket vouchers when they completed the forms to switch rolls.

• Attempts were made to alert Stats NZ and MSD, but neither agency acted.

Tamihere strenuously denied that census information was collected and misused. He said the allegations were driven by complainants with a gripe.

Former staff have told the Star-Times how they were tasked with a ‘team challenge’ to get as many people as possible to complete the census. They were then paid $100 per form, with some teams racking up tens of thousands of dollars in payments.

They spoke to the Star-Times on condition of anonymity, afraid of community backlash. The staff are all pursuing personal grievance complaints against the marae for various claims including bullying and constructive dismissal.

Two revealed how they visited clients, who receive social services support from the marae, and encouraged them to complete both the census and enrolment forms.

They were then given $100 Pak'nSave gift vouchers, which were ordered in bulk by the marae. When the vouchers ran out, participants would instead get a kai parcel or wellbeing pack.

Kemp officially announced her candidacy in February 2023.

Staff said the inducements were “exploitative” but any attempts they made to question the practice were shut down.

Attempts to alert both MSD and Stats NZ were not followed up.

“I do think it was connected, and I do think it’s bad,” one of the former senior staffers said. “Our whānau need kai on the table… Instead of them having to go into MSD and ask for $100 and be declined, we were able to go: ‘Here, sign up for census, here’s $100’.

“If they were Māori, the next move for us was to get them changed over [from the general to Māori roll]. In our packs, we would have our census pack and then we would have the changeover [form]. We were delivering them at one time.”

On returning to the marae, staff had to complete two lots of paperwork to qualify for their bonus payment.

“In order for us to get our money, we had to do a Jotform [an online survey platform] which was [for] Waipareira [Trust] and a marae registry.

“We were catching every name, everybody in the household, their ages, date of birth, contact numbers, email address, and if they were Māori. It was a mission.

“We were just a couple of months short of the votes. There was definitely data-collecting and it was information that they shouldn’t have been collecting.”

Personal data is invaluable to political campaign teams who use it to target voters. But census information is strictly protected.

Throughout the year, staff say were repeatedly drilled to get marae visitors and clients to switch rolls. “The directive was continuous. Every time we had morning debriefs, it would come up.”

Messages between Kemp and staff show that 109 enrolment forms were collected in one day in May.

Kemp wrote: “Awesome … we want to collect data from the forms. Name, address, contact number, ethnicity can we get the 109 names onto a spreadsheet please. We will double check the census data and tick off from the data base.”

The marae also held a series of ‘activation days’ - community events which offered free hāngī, ice-cream, hot drinks and merchandise, like hoodies. These were targeted at increasing participation in the census, and then later voter registration.

Staff claim the food-truck operators were paid from marae funds.

At these events, people were encouraged to switch to the Māori roll and handed a $100 gift card on completing the form.

“For the Tāmaki area, Peeni Henare was disadvantaged because he didn’t activate the way that Tarsh [Kemp] did, with the funding that she had,” the senior staffer said.

“If I look back at all the funding that we spent, one activation could cost us $10,000. She was paying for ice-creams, coffee, hāngī, vouchers, bouncy castle, staffing time.”

Another source described what they saw at the marae’s census hub.

“There were staff and volunteers, which were the kids of staff members. And then I saw one of the kids making photocopies of the census forms. And there was a whole stack of them.

“I said to her: ‘What are you doing?’ She said: ‘I’m photocopying these for the boss.’ Every single form… I seen with my own eyes, they are photocopying the census.

“At the time, I thought they were keeping it for funding applications.”

This was confirmed by another former employee who said they frequently had to change the photocopier’s toner.

“I would see them bring all these forms in and start photocopying. It was jamming up what we were doing… [I had to] change the toner heaps and put in paper. They were the census forms or the voting forms to change over.

“I said: ‘You’re not allowed to keep that, what are you doing with it’?”

They said they witnessed the papers being boxed and taken away, but not by the marae’s regular secure document destruction service.

The marae staffed a dedicated desk for visitors to fill out the enrolment form, the ex-employee said. “The vocab they were told to use was basically: ‘Sign this, or you can’t get that.’

“They would say: ‘Tick that box … to change rolls, and then we can give you your voucher’.

“To me they were using a community that was already in poverty, using the food and that so they will come in. They knew that they’d come in because they’d get vouchers and free coffee and ice-cream.

“A lot of people came. We were overrun.”

Some of the food parcels and wellbeing packs were stuffed with Te Pāti Māori flyers, one ex-employee claimed.

Another told the Star-Times they were uncomfortable with the collection of data. “There were benefits for our whānau but it played with my head because I like things done properly… I felt it was wrong.

“The packs were full of goodies. Vicks, paracetamol, hot-water bottle, beanies, gloves, and food parcels and a hygiene pack.”

In the wake of the election, the marae was at the centre of claims it had broken electoral laws by providing food during the advance voting period. After an investigation, the Electoral Commission chose not to refer the matter to police, despite complaints from the Labour, National and Vision NZ parties.

In February, the Star-Times revealed deleted social media videos that promoted a ticketing system where voters could collect free hāngī, doughnuts, hot chocolate and coffee on providing proof of voting at the marae.

Tamihere strenuously denied that census information was collected and misused. He accused the complainants of “having a gripe”. He said he would not permit Kemp to be interviewed.

“We [Whānua Ora] have a contract with the statistics department,” he said. “They were way behind on Māori census numbers and so we entered into a contract for our affiliates, particularly in Tāmaki Makaurau, to up Māori participation.

“There's no doubt that as part of getting our people to participate in the census, we gave kai manaaki vouchers, which were $50 vouchers to either Pak’nSave or Woolworths.

“At the same time as the census was running so was the Māori option.”

Last year, after a law change allowed Māori to choose to change rolls at any time except in the three months before an election, the Electoral Commission ran an awareness campaign.

“It would be pretty stupid not to put both together, wouldn't it? Well, that’s what occurred,” Tamihere said. “Our civic duty to our people is to alert them to both.

“When we do relationships with our people and they come to our maraes, we either provide kai or kai manaaki packaging. You call it an inducement, we call it maanaaki.

“I understand exactly what's going on here with a cluster of staff who had a gripe. And I get disenchanted with gripe-driven staff.”

After committing to investigating the claims of misuse of data, Tamihere followed up with an emailed statement.

“I have interviewed both kaimahi [staff] involved at the marae that loaded and handled all data, along with our senior data analyst in contract performance.

“I am satisfied that your allegations will require hard evidence rather than speculation and invite you to supply your evidence.

“In that regard, as a part of our contract we must destroy all hard copies of information and erase data.

“Now, if you have any evidence it has been stolen and I would be deeply concerned at the conduct of your source and indeed yourself.”

Tamihere also denied Te Pāti Māori leaflets were included in support packages. “Free kai, coffee and ice creams for babies were provided by the marae to maanaaki our whānau as a form of ‘treating’.

“You practise your culture, our marae will and must provide our culture.”

The marae did not respond to questions or a request to interview chief executive Hilda Peters.

Tamihere said: “The marae leadership will not make any comment whilst matters are alive in terms of the Employment Contracts Act.”

Stats NZ confirmed it has appointed an external investigator to “look at the allegations around both inappropriate use of incentives and inappropriate treatment of the census forms.”

A spokesperson for the agency said it partnered with the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency to lift low 2023 census response rates from Māori in Auckland.

“The collection operations with non-responding and partial-responding Māori households were led by Te Pae Herenga o Tāmaki. As part of this, Whānau Ora worked with Manurewa Marae.”

She said information collected via census forms or any Stats NZ survey is protected by the Data and Statistics Act 2022 and the Privacy Act 2020.

“The allegations that census forms were copied and retained, that the information was used for other purposes, and that reports of this nature were not followed up are very serious.

“We are investigating.”

She encouraged anyone with concerns of this nature to contact the agency via OfficeoftheGSCE@stats.govt.nz, the police or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

MSD refused to answer questions. Janet Green, general manager of workplace integrity, said: “We do not comment on whether we have received protected disclosures… If we had received a disclosure, we would be required by legislation to keep all identifying information confidential.”

A spokesperson for the Electoral Commission said: “We were not aware of these concerns, and they are not matters that we would look into under the Electoral Act.”

A police spokesperson confirmed “a complaint was laid this week. At this time, we are unable to comment further.”

The staff involved want all the agencies involved to conduct an investigation.

Employment advocate Allan Halse is acting for the former marae staff who are pursuing a settlement, and the MSD whistleblower. He is also a former returning officer and census manager.

“Some of our clients got penalised for raising concerns. We believe there should be an investigation, not only into what happened at the marae, but also the way this was managed by MSD,” he said.

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