Stats NZ

Goal

Query official New Zealand statistics through a small deterministic CLI with human-readable and JSON output, without browser automation, login, API keys, or local cache state.

This skill ships support for:

• Consumers price index quarterly index numbers
• National estimated population and national population projections
• Regional council estimated resident population from Stats NZ place summaries
• Main means of travel to work from one Stats NZ place summary
• International long-term migrant arrivals, departures, and net migration
• Quarterly GDP production and expenditure headline series
• Exact series lookup for the wired CPI and GDP CSV releases
• Search over the Stats NZ large-datasets CSV catalogue

Use this when

• A user asks for official New Zealand CPI, GDP, population, migration, or place-summary travel-to-work figures
• A user needs recent Stats NZ release values in a repeatable command-line workflow
• A user wants a Stats NZ CSV dataset URL or to search the public CSV catalogue
• A workflow needs public, no-login, machine-readable Stats NZ data
• Another tool or agent needs JSON output from official New Zealand statistics

Do not use this for

• Private, unpublished, embargoed, or authenticated Stats NZ data
• Administrative Data Explorer or OData API calls that require subscription keys
• Geospatial boundaries, maps, or GIS workflows from datafinder.stats.govt.nz
• Census microdata, confidentialised unit records, or custom table-builder extraction
• Figure.NZ or any other republished table. Travel to work is read only from the official Stats NZ place summary
• Travel to education, origin-destination matrices, or a crawl of every geography
• Redistributing public-data extracts as a standalone dataset

Preferred workflow

1. Run scripts/cli.py with the narrowest subcommand that answers the task
2. Use cpi for the headline quarterly all-groups CPI index 2a. Use fpi for the headline monthly all-groups Food Price Index
3. Use population for national estimates, population --projection YEAR for national projections, or population --region REGION for regional council population 3a. Use place-travel CLASS/slug for main means of travel to work at one place. population remains the estimated-resident-population command
4. Use migration for latest long-term migrant arrivals, departures, and net migration
5. Use gdp for quarterly headline GDP production and expenditure series
6. Use series <id> when the user gives a Stats NZ Series_reference
7. Use search <query> before adding a new Stats NZ CSV-backed command
8. Use --json when another tool or agent needs machine-readable output
9. Mention Stats NZ as the upstream source and include the release URL when reporting figures

CLI

Run with:

python3 skills/stats-nz/scripts/cli.py <command> [flags]

Commands

• cpi [--from DATE] [--to DATE] [--json] - Consumers price index quarterly all-groups index for New Zealand
• fpi [--from DATE] [--to DATE] [--json] - Food price index monthly all-groups index for New Zealand
• population [--region REGION] [--projection YEAR] [--scenario SCENARIO] [--json] - national population, regional council population, or national projection
• place-travel PLACE [--address usual|workplace] [--json] - main means of travel to work for one place summary
• migration [--json] - latest estimated long-term migrant arrivals, departures, and net migration
• gdp [--from DATE] [--to DATE] [--json] - quarterly headline GDP production and expenditure measures
• series ID [--from DATE] [--to DATE] [--limit N] [--json] - observations for a wired Stats NZ Series_reference
• search QUERY [--limit N] [--json] - search the Stats NZ large-datasets CSV catalogue

Examples:

python3 skills/stats-nz/scripts/cli.py cpi
python3 skills/stats-nz/scripts/cli.py cpi --from 2025-03 --json
python3 skills/stats-nz/scripts/cli.py fpi --json
python3 skills/stats-nz/scripts/cli.py population --json
python3 skills/stats-nz/scripts/cli.py population --region auckland --json
python3 skills/stats-nz/scripts/cli.py place-travel UR/auckland --json
python3 skills/stats-nz/scripts/cli.py population --projection 2050 --json
python3 skills/stats-nz/scripts/cli.py migration --json
python3 skills/stats-nz/scripts/cli.py gdp --json
python3 skills/stats-nz/scripts/cli.py series CPIQ.SE9A --limit 4 --json
python3 skills/stats-nz/scripts/cli.py search "gross domestic product" --limit 5 --json

Resources

• CLI entrypoint: scripts/cli.py
• API and dataset notes: references/api-notes.md

Notes

• Stats NZ is the upstream source for all implemented commands
• No API key, username, password, cookie, or browser session is required for implemented commands
• cpi, fpi, gdp, migration, series, and search use the public Stats NZ large-datasets CSV catalogue at https://www.stats.govt.nz/large-datasets/csv-files-for-download/
• fpi resolves the latest Food Price Index "index numbers" CSV on that page; the bulk-CSV page can host an older FPI release than Infoshare, so it auto-freshens when a newer CSV is posted
• population uses public Stats NZ indicator, projection release, and regional-council place-summary pages. It still reads estimated resident population only
• place-travel reads one place-summary page on tools.summaries.stats.govt.nz and returns the main-means-of-travel-to-work rows for usual residence or workplace address. One place per call, 15-second timeout, and a 2 MB page cap. A suppressed cell keeps the published confidentiality indicator and does not invent a percent or count. An empty travel section is a failure
• The modern Stats NZ OData/API surface was not wired because live discovery indicated subscription-key requirements; this skill stays no-login and read-only
• CSV release URLs change as new releases are published; the CLI discovers the current release from the Stats NZ catalogue where possible
• Default output is human-readable; every data command supports --json for chaining into other tools
• Avoid high-volume polling; use narrow commands and date filters