The push to complete the Census online is alienating the elderly and won't give an accurate representation of their population, says Age Concern.
On the eve of the March 6 Census, it's claimed the new system is isolating people who aren't computer savvy, like the elderly.
Age Concern has been flooded with calls from older people confused by the new approach.
"I think it's really poor that something as important as this has been managed in a way that really puts a barrier up and isolates a group that we should not be isolating," Simon Templeton of Age Concern told 1 NEWS.
"We won't have an accurate picture of what that older population is and is going to be," he said.
Mr Templeton believes the former process, where the Census forms were delivered to households then collected by Statistics workers, was a better way to ensure more people were involved.
Age Concern thinks the online system should have been phased in more slowly.
So far under the new system, 96 per cent of the access codes to complete the Census online have been sent out, and the forms have been filled out by 1.2 million New Zealanders, or 24 per cent of the population.
2018 Census General Manager, Denise McGregor, is happy with the way it's going.
"I'm really happy. I think that the discussion that's going on out there shows that there's a high level of awareness of the Census. And that' really great," she said.
Kaikoura is being given special treatment after ex-Cyclone Gita.
"We will be visiting people in Kaikoura. And that's a recognition of what they've been through and the state of their infrastructure," Ms McGregor said.
And if you forget to fill out the Census, or haven't yet got your access code, you'll get a reminder, and you still complete it after March 6.
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