A new survey out of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows New Zealand is trailing far behind its peers when it comes to the trust that women have in central government.
While 55% of men were found to have high or moderately high trust in the central government, only 37% of women felt the same.
It’s a gender gap of 18% – much higher than the average OECD gap of 7%, and the highest gender gap among countries in the OECD.
It shows there's a significant difference in how much men and women trust the central government in NZ.
This data is from the OECD’s Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions survey which was conducted between the 20th September to the 12th December last year and gathered 58,230 valid responses from adults across 30 OECD countries.
The OECD published the survey’s findings in a report last week.
The survey revealed that although there is an 18% gap between men and women in trust in central government, New Zealanders generally trust their central government more than the average person in OECD countries.
In 2023, 46% of New Zealanders expressed high or moderate trust in the central government, which was higher than the OECD average of 39%.
Trust in NZ's central government is 1% higher than trust in local government.
“Similarly to most OECD countries, New Zealanders place more trust in the police (71%), other people (63%) and courts and the judicial system (60%) than in the central government (46%),” the OECD said.
“Political parties (32%) and news media (37%) are the least trusted institutions in New Zealand.”
The survey also indicated that the trust gap in New Zealand between younger and older people – as well as between those with lower and higher educational attainment – was greater than the OECD average.
When it came to perceptions of day-to-day interactions with public institutions, 70% of NZ respondents said they were satisfied with administrative services, which is 4% above the OECD average.
Satisfaction with New Zealand's education system is 55%, compared to the OECD average of 57%.
The gap in healthcare system satisfaction was larger. Only 46% of New Zealanders were satisfied with NZ’s healthcare system, much lower than the OECD average of 52%.
A large majority of New Zealanders (62%) believe the government would protect lives in a national emergency, which is 9% higher than the OECD average of 53%.
Nearly half or 49% of people thought parliament effectively held the government accountable, which is 11% higher than the OECD average of 38%.
Only 34% of New Zealanders believed the government would refuse harmful corporate demands – above the OECD average of 30% – and perceptions of government integrity were low across the whole OECD survey.
However only 42% believed that public employees would refuse bribes to speed up services. This is above the OECD average of 36%.
Interestingly, 44% of New Zealanders felt the political system gives them a voice, surpassing the OECD average of 30% by 14%.
The OECD, an international organization promoting policies to improve economic and social well-being, has 38 member countries, with New Zealand being a member since 1973.
14 Comments
https://stat.link/files/3d5c5d31-en/8mkgqt.xlsx
“trust in government statistics were not available for New Zealand”
"34% of New Zealanders believed the government would refuse harmful corporate demands"
Shouldn't that be 34% are OK with the NACT government being back on track with greenlighting pet corporate lobbyists trashing our environment? GMOs, water, mining, fags, polluting vehicles, urban sprawl, you name it, this bunch of quacks are so deep into their donors pockets, we are back on track in our slide down the world corruption index!
"Trust in government" - does that mean in the levels of honesty or in their basic competence? They are two quite different things: the difference between doing the right thing and doing things right.
The survey's definition is: “a person’s belief that another person or institution will act consistently with their expectation of positive behaviour”, which leaves that open.
Personally I trust that central government reasonably honest within the "cosy arrangements" that run New Zealand, but don't trust them to be effective or efficient.
Having worked in government for a number of years, I had it drilled into me initially that the #1 primary goal was to ensure the public had faith in the government, and this was to be reflected in our work and the way we deal with others, service we give etc. This seemed fine and things ticked along, but with the previous regime a culture of obfuscation, avoiding responsibility, fear of speaking one's mind or be labelled or have one's career impacted, promoting incompetent workers to roles they aren't suited for, and general disconnect, all crept in. This was rather insidious and will take time to change. Many won't be used to being held to account for their work, told their pay rise won't be as big as they'd expected due to lack of achievement etc and behaviour takes time to change and solidify. It's nice to see some resemblance of accountability coming back, but I will reserve any faith for another year until I can see decisions made, and direct results.
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