Key insights
- Inflation / cost of living is easily the #1 issue in the IPSOS research, and also the #1 issue in both Curia and Kantar research too.
- After that, 4 other key issue areas frequently come up:
- Housing
- Health
- Crime
- Economy
NOTE: Kantar was the only one to ask about “Protection of NZ children” and it was the #2 issue in their research. They appear to be the only ones asking about “Mental Wellbing of NZers” and “Suicide rates” too, so it is hard to gauge where those issues stand.
- Environmental / climate change issues appear to be climbing again, and now sit in a similar position to Poverty / inequality
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Key questions
- Do you agree with the order and importance of these issues?
- Which issue surprised you the most?
- How do we fix them?
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Polling companies
- We have found three different polling companies that research and publish issue rankings for New Zealand:
- IPSOS
- Asks respondents for their top 3 issues from the list of 20 shown in the graphic.
- SOURCE: https://www.ipsos.com/en-nz/18th-ipsos-new-zealand-issues-monitor-sept-2022
- Curia
- Asks respondents for their top 1 issue from a list, but only publicly shares the top 9 issues which make up 71% of answers. The other issues in ranking positions 10+ are not shown which is why we did not include their data in our graphic.
- SOURCE: https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/taxpayers_union_curia_poll_september_2022
- Kantar
- Show respondents 20 ‘concerns’ at random from a list of 48 concerns in total. They publicly share the top 10. We are not sure how they generate their % scores, or what the other 38 issues are, but have asked. This is why we couldn’t show their data in the graphic either.
- SOURCE: https://www.kantarnewzealand.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Kantar-Better-Futures-Report-2022.pdf
- IPSOS
- If you know of other polling companies that publish issue information like this, please let us know.
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Polling comparison
- Remember that each polling company asks the question in a very different way. See notes above.
- The adjusted score is out of 100% so that we can compare %s in some way between different polling companies. Curia didn’t need an adjusted score as their total = 100% already. We could not generate an adjusted score for Kantar as we don’t have the full list of 48 issues tested.
- Major differences between the polling companies include:
- IPSOS tests 20 issues. Kantar tests 48. We do not known how many Curia tests.
- IPSOS splits out Inflation /cost of living with Petrol prices / fuel
- Curia tests Policies and Covid-19, but IPSOS does not.
- Kantar tests Protection of NZ Children, Suicide rates and Mental Wellbeing of NZers but IPSOS does not. We don’t know if Curia does as we don’t have their full list.
- Kantar splits out Violence in society and Crime levels, and also splits up Environment in multiple sub-issues
- We can’t understand further differences unless/until we have the full issue lists from Curia and Kantar. However, it is useful to see everyone’s top 20/9/10.
Issue | IPSOS | Score | Adj’ | Curia | Score | Kantar | Score | Adj’ | |
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#1 | Inflation / cost of living | 58% | 19% | Cost of Living | 22% | The cost of living | 68% | ? | |
2 | Housing / price of housing | 33% | 11% | Economy | 15% | Protection of NZ Children | 67% | ? | |
3 | Healthcare / hospitals | 32% | 11% | Health | 7% | Availability of affordable housing | 66% | ? | |
4 | Crime / law & order | 31% | 10% | Law & Order | 6% | Build-up of plastic in the environment | 66% | ? | |
5 | Economy | 23% | 8% | Environment | 5% | Violence in society | 65% | ? | |
6 | Climate change | 21% | 7% | Policies | 5% | Too much waste/rubbish generated | 60% | ? | |
7 | Poverty / inequality | 20% | 6% | Poverty | 4% | Crime levels | 59% | ? | |
8 | Petrol prices / fuel | 17% | 4% | Housing | 4% | Overpackaging, non-recyclable packaging and landfill | 59% | ? | |
9 | Environmental pollution / water concerns | 11% | 3% | Covid-19 | 3% | Suicide rates | 58% | ? | |
10 | Education | 9% | 2% | ? | Mental Wellbeing of Nzers | 58% | ? | ||
11 | Drug / alcohol abuse | 7% | 2% | ? | |||||
12 | Household / personal debt | 7% | 2% | ? | |||||
13 | Taxation | 6% | 2% | ? | |||||
14 | Transport / public transport | 6% | 2% | ? | |||||
15 | Race relations / racism | 5% | 2% | ? | |||||
16 | Unemployment | 5% | 2% | ? | |||||
17 | Immigration | 3% | 1% | ? | |||||
18 | Population / overpopulation | 3% | 1% | ? | |||||
19 | Issues facing Māori | 3% | 1% | ? | |||||
20 | Defence / foreign affairs / terrorism | 1% | 0% | ? |
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Have your say
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Full data
Please contact us if you would like the full analysis.
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Notes
- All publicly available data has been included.
- Decimal places are not publicly provided by any of the three polling companies.
- IPSOS data:
- The results are relative, not absolute, so can show an issue’s % decreasing over time even though society is growing more concerned with it.
- We numbered the top 8 issues in the graphic because:
- These represent 78% of all issues put into the top three by respondents.
- There was a significant drop off from Petrol prices / fuel at 17% and Environmental pollution / water concerns at 11%
- The colour-coding was automatically assigned by Excel.
- We changed the font size to mirror the % scores, except for issues 9-20 so that they remained readable.
- All numbers are provisional and subject to revision.
Thank you to the Factors who helped pull this together.
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Sources
- IPSOS https://www.ipsos.com/en-nz/18th-ipsos-new-zealand-issues-monitor-sept-2022
- Curia https://www.taxpayers.org.nz/taxpayers_union_curia_poll_september_2022
- Kantar https://www.kantarnewzealand.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Kantar-Better-Futures-Report-2022.pdf
IPSOS information presented in a graphic with permission.
Licensed for use under the creative commons attribution licence (BY) 4.0
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Did we make a mistake, or have you got smarter data? Let us know.