Submission on Stats NZ’s retirement of interactive data visualisations

^{Stats NZ interactive data visualisation on river water quality that is proposed to be retired}

The Commissioner has made a submission to Stats NZ on its plans to retire interactive data visualisations currently used on its website to display environmental indicators.

The underlying application used to construct these visualisations is well-suited to visualising complex datasets and this proposal disproportionately impacts the presentation of environmental indicators. Of the approximately 172 visualisations that Stats NZ is proposing to retire, about 80% are related to environmental reporting or environmental–economic accounting programmes.

This proposal is a backwards step that will result in decreased data transparency and a loss of user confidence in the data. It is also at odds with the recommendations of the Commissioner's review of Aotearoa's environmental reporting system, and global trends towards easier and more accessible information visualisation.