Government statisticians are inching towards asking New Zealanders about their sexual orientation, but probably not before the census after next - which means in 2016.
After 12 years of agitation by gay activists, Statistics New Zealand has published a discussion paper acknowledging for the first time "emerging interest" in sexual orientation and behaviour.
A former editor of the gay newspaper Express, Victor van Wetering, has asked the Office of Human Rights Proceedings to take a legal case against the department on the grounds that not including a question about it in the census is illegal discrimination.
Census forms have already let people describe another person in their household as their "same-sex partner" - a category which almost doubled from 3255 couples in the 1996 census to 6171, or 0.7% of all couples, in 2006.
But census-takers in New Zealand, Australia, the United States, Canada and Britain have all so far shied away from asking people directly whether they are heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual.
Statistics NZ's manager of social conditions, Conal Smith, said he was not aware of any country that had included the question in a census yet.
But he did say: "There is a legitimate user need for this information."
The discussion paper says health authorities need data on gay, lesbian and bisexual populations because they have higher rates of suicide, physical and verbal assault, bullying victimisation, depression, smoking, alcohol and drug dependence and workplace discrimination.
Other agencies are considering changes in welfare benefit entitlements for same-sex couples living together, changes in adoption and family law, and to hospital and school policies.
Mr Smith said there were still two barriers to asking people about their sexual orientation in official surveys.
One was technical: sample surveys might not be reliable because gay and lesbian people were concentrated in a few areas such as central Auckland, which would have only a fraction of all the respondents in a national survey. Statistics NZ and the Ministry of Social Development had just started research on how to allow for this.
The second issue was "public acceptability".
"We know from past censuses that questions which a substantial chunk of the population, or even a smallish chunk of the population, don't like, or feel are inappropriate, produce very bad data," Mr Smith said.
"That can affect the quality of the rest of it," he said.
Statistics NZ held focus groups before the last census which found that "a majority voiced acceptance or grudging acceptance to the idea of a question on sexual orientation being included in the census".
But the discussion paper notes that the greatest opposition to the proposal came from Pacific people, and to a lesser extent from Maori, Asian, rural and older groups - all "high interest groups" for policymakers.
"There is concern that public resistance to a sexual orientation topic could result in reduced response rates for high interest groups," it says.
Mr Smith said Government Statistician Geoff Bascand had decided there would be no new topics in the next census due in 2011, so any question about sexual orientation might be asked first in a sample survey.
"A census is one of the collections we are most conservative with because it is the bedrock on which everything else is built," Mr Smith said.
Human Rights Proceedings Commissioner Robert Hesketh said he was considering Mr van Wetering's request fora legal challenge.
