The telephone number had operators speaking English, te reo Māori, Samoan, Tongan, Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, and Punjabi.
[6] The 1946 census was brought forward to Tuesday 25 September 1945, so that the results could be used for an electoral redistribution (the first for ten years) before the 1946 election.
[16] In February 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle had devastated parts of the North Island, prompting the Government to declare a national state of emergency in six regions.
[17] To address the disruption caused by Cyclone Gabrielle, the Government had agreed to an eight-week extension of the census for the worst affected areas.
In response to criticism of the 2018 New Zealand census, Mason confirmed that Statistics NZ had sent two forms in the post to bolster public engagement.
[17] According to Newsroom, Statistics NZ had fallen behind its target of visiting all non-responding and partially responding households by nine days after 7 March.
Mason also confirmed that census workers had made 1.3 million non-response follow-up visits to 790,000 dwellings by 31 March.
In an effort to boost participation, Statistics NZ deployed over 3,000 census collectors in the community until 3 May and until 1 June in Hawkes Bay and Gisborne.
Deputy government statistician Simon Mason warned that people who had not completed their census forms would receive a final notice from 9 May.
Watts also disputed Statistic NZ's position that Cyclone Gabrielle had disrupted the census collection process, pointing out that most of the uncompleted forms were from major cities with lower completion rates among Māori and Pasifika.
A whistleblower from the Ministry of Social Development had alerted Statistics NZ and the Police, which had delayed investigating the matter.
In response, Te Pāti Māori leader John Tamihere denied the allegations and claimed they were made by disgruntled former staff.
Tamihere also acknowledged that marae workers had given gifts to encourage people to participate in the 2023 Census and switch to the Māori roll.
The report made nine recommendations to improve Statistics NZ's procedures and referred allegations against Manurewa Marae to the Privacy Commissioner.
[28] On 11 February 2025, The New Zealand Herald reported that Detective Superintendent Ross McKay was leading an investigation into allegations regarding Te Pāti Māori's misuse of census data and Covid-19 vaccination information at Manurewa Marae during the 2023 general election.