4 March 2013
The Mood of the Nation report compiling the findings of UMR’s 2012 surveys suggests that levels of public confidence in New Zealand institutions have not changed substantially over the last year. Exceptions are the increase by 12% in respondents showing “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the public health system (twice the level of 2001) and also in small business which continues to improve from a low point five years ago.
Police, general practitioners and primary schools maintain the top three positions.
The public service (unlikely to be seen by survey respondents as just the 29 departments) which rated equally with newspapers last year has dropped this year, now rating between newspapers and the media generally. However there was no change in the respect shown for public servants as an occupational group – remaining at 6.2. Nurses continue as the most respected, up marginally (to 8.7) and real estate agents as the least respected (at 4.2). The only lessening of respect was for teachers (down .1 to 7.9). They now share honours as the third most respected occupation with Police.
And as in previous years, of the 18 institutions assessed, there is least public confidence in Parliament, the church/organised religion, big business and the unions.
2013 Great deal of confidence in agency (2012)
1 Police 70 (72) (1st)
2 GPs 69 (67) (2nd)
3 Primary schools 64 (64) (3rd)
4 Universities 59 (60) (5th)
5 Small business 56 (48) (8th)
6 Public health system 54 (42) (10th)
7 Secondary schools 54 (51) (6th)
8 The military 53 (61) (4th)
9 TV news 49 (43) (9th)
10 Banks 48 (49) (7th)
11 Courts 47 (39) (11th)
12 Newspapers 40 (34) (12th=)
13 Public service 38 (34) (12th=)
14 Media generally 32 (29) (14th
15 Big business 32 (27) (16th=)
16 Parliament 29 (25) (18th)17 Churches 29 (28) (15th)
18 Unions 28 (27) (16th=
http://umr.co.nz/sites/umr/files/umr_mood_of_the_nation_2012_online.pdf from page 34
http://umr.co.nz/sites/umr/files/umr_mood_of_the_nation_2012.pdf
Integrity Talking Points 