Question asked
What would you say are the three most important issues facing New Zealand today?
…
Key insights
- Younger and older Kiwis both agree that Inflation / cost of living is the #1 issue currently facing New Zealand, however, 63% of <50s listed this in their top 3 and 52% of >50s
- Younger Kiwis <50 are significantly more concerned about Housing / price of housing (38%) than >50s (26%)
- Older Kiwis >50 are significantly more concerned about Healthcare / hospitals (39%) than <50s (26%)
- Older Kiwis >50 are significantly more concerned about Crime / law & order (39%) than <50s (25%)
- Older Kiwis >50 are significantly more concerned about the Economy (28%) than <50s (18%)
- Younger Kiwis <50 rank these 5 issues: Inflation > Housing > Healthcare > Crime > Economy
- However, older Kiwis >50 put Housing at the bottom of this list: Inflation > Healthcare > Crime > Economy > Housing
…
Key questions
- Do we lack empathy/understanding of the most important issues facing different groups?
- Do older Kiwis >50 need to improve their empathy with how hard Inflation and Housing are for younger Kiwis <50?
- Do men need to improve their empathy with how concerned women are with Housing? (see other demographic insights below)
- Do younger Kiwis <50 need to improve their empathy with how concerned older Kiwis >50 are with Healthcare, Crime, and the Economy?
- Are our education systems failing to teach younger Kiwis about the impact/importance the Economy has on Inflation and Housing?
- How do we fix all of these issues?
…
Other demographic insights
Across the significant differences by demographic, the most common were based on age, but there were others:
- Inflation / cost of living:
- ALL KIWIS = 58%
- Asian Kiwis = 72%
- Housing / price of housing:
- Men = 27%
- ALL KIWIS = 33%
- Women = 38%
- Healthcare / hospitals:
- Māori = 22%
- Aucklanders = 25% [NOTE: Māori and Aucklanders are younger on average]
- $100k earners = 26%
- ALL KIWIS = 32%
- Crime / law & order:
- Māori = 21%
- ALL KIWIS = 31%
- Retirees = 43%
- Government performance:
- ALL KIWIS = 5.5 / 10
- Māori = 6.7 / 10
…
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.
…
Polling comparison
- Remember that each polling company asks the question in a very different way. See notes above.
- The adjusted scores below are 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 know 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. As such, it is hard to gauge where mental health issues stand.
- 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’ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #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% | ? |
…
Have your say
…
Full data
Please contact us if you would like the full analysis.
…
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/comparitive, not absolute, so can show an issue’s % decreasing over time even though society is growing more concerned with it.
- We have shown the top 5 issues overall as these were broken down into significant differences by demographic variables. This was not done for issues #6 onwards. It is possible Climate change, Poverty / inequality, Petrol prices / fuel, and Environmental pollution / water concerns might be seen as more important issues for <50s than some others shown in the graph. This data has not been shared publicly.
- We had to estimate the <50s % for Inflation / cost of living as this was not shared publicly. However, we were told ALL = 58%, 50+ = 52%, and could use the % differences on other measures to fairly estimate 63%. We will check this figure with Ipsos and update it if necessary.
- All numbers are provisional and subject to revision.
Thank you to the Factors who helped pull this together.
…
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
…
Did we make a mistake, or have you got smarter data? Let us know.
