[8][9] An independent review was initiated by the Government Statistician in October 2019, and in November Statistics NZ announced that release of census data would be pushed back to at least April 2019 due to "the complex nature of the task".

[10] In early April 2019, the Government Statistician, Liz MacPherson was facing possible charges of contempt of parliament.

[11] She had twice refused, on 13 February and in early April, to disclose the number of partially and fully completed responses.

[11] In July 2019 the independent inquiry returned its findings to the Government Statistician, the Minister of Statistics and the State Services Commissioner, reporting that too little attention had been paid to the non-digital aspects of the census, but also blamed operational complexity and flaws in management.

[13] On 13 August 2019 the report was released to the public and Liz MacPherson offered her resignation, taking ultimate responsibility for the results, stating "I'm sorry, the buck stops with me.

"[14][15] State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes agreed with her assessment, and asked MacPherson to remain in her role until Christmas of 2019, noting that "she is the best person to finish the remediation work".

[21] The census usually-resident population count of New Zealand is a count of all people who usually live in and were present in the country on census night (6 March 2018), and excludes overseas visitors and New Zealand residents who are temporarily overseas.

[20] Declared sex of New Zealanders Data is for the census usually-resident population count of people aged 15 years and over.

[20] Data is for the census usually-resident population count of employed people aged 15 years and over.