A new schedule for a national census has been approved after what were initially strenuous objections from the Opposition.

In a switch from the five-year schedule set in 2002, and last carried out for the 2010 census, the count is now left to the Premier’s discretion, with censuses planned for 2016 and 2020.

Debate over the legislation was initially hostile, but in an accord between the One Bermuda Alliance and the Progressive Labour Party, the Government side acceded to an amendment stipulating that a census would be held at least once every ten years.

Premier Michael Dunkley gave Parliament his assurance that the census would proceed in the 2016 fiscal year.

The delay in not having a census this year would allow more cost-effective and better collection of information, Mr Dunkley said, based on the advice of the Department of Statistics.

However, PLP MPs Walter Roban and Wayne Furbert said the legislation would leave Government flying in the dark when it came to decisions on health and education, and policies such as health care.

Mr Furbert derided the notion of censuses being proposed by the Premier from “time to time”, while Mr Roban told MPs that recent years had seen profound changes to Bermudian demographics that were barely understood.

Shawn Crockwell, the Minister of Tourism Development and Transport insisted that Government would not be left lacking the necessary information to make clear decisions.

Instead, the Bill would give Government “the ability to have censuses done when we think it is necessarily required”.

The strongest language in the debate came from Marc Bean, Leader of the Opposition, who accused the OBA of seeking to take power as an “arbitrary Government”.

Mr Bean suggested their intent was to “manipulate data so that the negative impact of their social engineering will not see the light of day” — a reference to immigration policy, which Mr Dunkley vehemently denied.

After Parliament went into committee on the Statistics Amendment Act 2015, PLP MP Walton Brown proposed switching the line “from time to time” for “at intervals of not more than ten years”.

“The reason for this is to codify in law what has historically been in best practice,” Mr Brown said, although OBA MP Patricia Gordon-Pamplin said that “time to time” refered to the precedent of legislation being implemented “as soon as is practicable”.

Mr Furbert disagreed, saying: “If we can get ten years in there somewhere in the right lingo, I think we can hold hands once again”.

Mr Dunkley proposed an amendment keeping “from time to time” but stipulating “providing that the minister shall direct that a census be taken not more than every ten years”.

Mr Bean accepted the new wording, prompting Mr Dunkley to thank the Opposition for their support. Afterwards Mr Dunkley declared himself “gratified” by the bipartisan support.

He pointed out that in addition to the widespread policy uses of census data, the information was also required by the Constituency Boundaries Commission to determine the boundaries of each constituency — a function that had to be undertaken no later than seven years from the date on which the previous Commission submitted its report.

Setting the census to every five years made “eminent sense”, but he said costs ran up to an estimated $1.7 million.

“Deferring the Census in 2015 allows the Government to allocate funds to more pressing initiatives,” Mr Dunkley said.

It would also buy extra time for the Department to look into online data collection and thus cut down on the use of field interviewers, the highest cost in any census.

Problems with interviewers hampered the last census, which was initially short on personnel and then required an extension, in part because interviewers were said to be more concerned than usual about door-knocking.