It’s time for Kiwis to live up to our surveys
It’s all very well finishing fifth in international league tables but we should never forget what defines us.
have his support.
‘‘As long as these guys are staying with their brethren who are profiting from meth and all the sordid nasty stuff that goes with it then they don’t really have a lot of credibility.’’
But Tokomauri Hoterene, who is also the event’s spokesman and works as a community worker in Whangarei dismissed negativity about the event.
‘‘We want to go home to our families at night. What we’re saying is to put down the guns and stop the violence.
‘‘People can say what they like but we want things to change and this is a step toward that.’’ NEWZealand, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is, and remember what defines us.
Well, it’s not specifically your mouth, but the mouths of the 9000 people who took part in a Statistics New Zealand survey on the nation’s wellbeing.
In the space of a year, these people were quizzed about their health, relationships and money issues. According to the results released this week, out of 35 developed countries where people were asked the same questions, New Zealand storms in at a whopping fifth.
Weirdly, since someone first started doing surveys of this nature, we always seem to come in fifth. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that, it seems quite respectable.
Sure, it’s not a podium finish but it’s near it. Anyway, it seems to fit in with our reserved nature. Standing on top of a podium for saying we have the best wellbeing of any country in the world, just isn’t the Kiwi way.
If anything, it’d be a sign that we’d been in the sun for too long, and needed to come inside for a lie-down.
In all these types of surveys – and again in this particular one – New Zealand usually comes fifth to the same four countries: Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Denmark. Sometimes the order in which those countries finish changes... but we still come fifth.
A big part of this particular fifth placing would have been based on Kiwis rating their life happiness on a scale of 1 to 10. Most answered with a 7.
This again reflects perfectly the typical New Zealand nature: we don’t want to be seen so vain as to put down something as lofty as a 9 or 10. Even an 8 would be showing off. But 7 is about right and displays more self-esteem than a 5 or 6.
The study also held other revealing gems. Four out of five Kiwis, said they had a strong sense of belonging to NZ, whereas, on the other end of the lifesatisfaction spectrum, just less than 11 per cent said they did not have enough money to pay for
Four out of five Kiwis had a strong sense of belonging to NZ, but just less than 11 per cent said they did not have enough money for necessities such as food, housing and clothing.’
necessities such as food, housing and clothing.
Apparently those in Auckland – just edging Wellington and Christchurch – have the greatest life satisfaction. But Auckland also ranked the lowest when it came to having a strong sense of purpose.
And, of course, that probably won’t surprise those outside of our largest city, who like to sometimes wonder what the point of Auckland is.
But the real gem out of it all is what we think defines New Zealand. It is not the All Blacks, not our nuclear free stance, not even our dairy industry. Instead, the top answers are ‘‘freedom, rights and peace’’ and the country’s environment.
The environment is a given, but I never would have expected ‘‘freedom, rights and peace.’’
Those are the sorts of things I would have written in order to sound flash. Either those 9000 people were doing the same, or they really think that. If so, that is awesome. And I hope we never forget that.