Republished with Permission
Bryce Edwards
Political Analyst in Residence, director of the Democracy Project, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington.
The Establishment in New Zealand is becoming deeply unpopular. A range of new survey data shows that public discontent with politicians, the media, business and NGOs continues to grow.
Discontent with democracy revealed in the NZ Election Study
At every New Zealand general election, a group of academics survey the public about their attitudes toward politicians. The results for last year’s 2023 New Zealand Election Study (NZES) were presented last week at Victoria University of Wellington by political scientist Mona Krewel at a symposium with Ashley Bloomfield, looking at “Trust in Institutions and Democracy in Aotearoa New Zealand”. The survey’s data reveals an increasing decline in public trust and respect for politicians and some concerning judgments about the integrity of the political process.
In 2023, the NZES survey asked a new question to get a sense of the extent to which New Zealanders think the political system is biased in favour of elites. People were asked whether they agreed with the statement: “Most politicians care only about the interests of the rich and powerful”. About 35 per cent agreed with this, and about 37 per cent disagreed. So, this suggests that about a third of the population believes that the “rich and powerful” dominate the political system, i.e., democracy isn’t working.
Similarly, respondents were asked whether they agreed with the statement: “Most politicians act in the best interests of all”. Again, over a third are discontented with democracy – about 36 per cent disagreed that politicians act in favour of everyone’s interests. And only 29 per cent agreed with the statement.
There have been a lot of scandals in recent years related to the integrity of parliamentarians. Therefore, it’s helpful that the NZES asked respondents: “How would you rate the standards of honesty and integrity of elected politicians in New Zealand today?” On this, 31 per cent rated NZ MPs as having “low” honesty and integrity, and only 27 per cent rated the standards as “high”.
Similarly, respondents were asked whether they agreed with the statement: “Most politicians behave with great integrity.” About 42 per cent agreed, and 36 per cent disagreed.
The public’s trust in politicians appears to be declining, according to the NZES data. At each election, the survey asks to what extend respondents believe that “Most politicians are trustworthy.” Rated on a one to five scale, where five means very trustworthy, in 2023 the average rating was only about 2.87 out of five. This rating has been dropping since 2017.
Commenting on these polling trends, Jacqui Van Der Kaay wrote an analysis column for the Democracy Project, arguing that “Politicians need to lift their game.” She has also written a chapter about the impact of integrity issues on the 2023 election, which is coming out in the forthcoming book, Back on Track?, about the election campaign.
Van Der Kaay argues that although integrity issues dominated the election campaign last year, things appear to have worsened this year. She explores some of the ways more must be done to clamp down on integrity violations.
Trust in politics and media plummets in the latest Acumen-Edelman Trust Barometer
Each year the Edelman PR company publishes a global survey about public trust in authorities. The New Zealand element of this survey is commissioned by local PR firm Acumen, and the results haven’t yet been formally published anywhere. However, the results also reveal declining public trust, and therefore they deserve a wider audience.
This year, the trust results for the institutions of government and the media are particularly negative. In line with other survey results, it reveals that New Zealanders are quickly losing faith in politics and journalism.
The Acumen-Edelman survey asked respondents to indicate whether they trust the institution of government to do what is right and 48 per cent said they did. This was down three percentage points on the results for 2023. And it compares to the global results of 51 per cent.
The institution of the media fares much worse. Only 36 per cent trust the media to do what is right and this has dropped five percentage points in just one year. And New Zealand’s results compare very unfavourable to the global results of 50 per cent satisfaction for the media.
NGOs in New Zealand are more trusted – with 57 per cent indicating trust. And the institution of business does the best – with 60 per cent trusting them (but lower than the global average of 63 per cent).
According to the Edelman categorisation of trusted institutions, this means that media (36 per cent) and government (48 per cent) are “Distrusted” institutions in this country, NGOs fall into the “Neutral” category and business is the only “Trusted” institution.
The general public trust in these institutions has fluctuated over time. And it’s worth noting that institutions like government and the media initially became more trusted after 2017, but have declined considerably over the last two years. Trust in government has dropped nine percentage points from a height of 57 per cent at the time of the 2022 Acumen-Edelman Trust Barometer.
Survey respondents were also asked about their evaluations of the ethics and competency of the four main institutions. Again, media and government fared particularly poorly in the latest trust barometer. In terms of ethics, government has gone from a +15 in the 2022 report to a -7 this year. Media has gone from -8 to -16 in this period. Meanwhile, NGOs and Business have only declined a small amount.
When it comes to an evaluation of competency, government has gone from -15 to -26, and Media from -25 to -34. Meanwhile, NGOs and Business have seen increases in perceived competence.
The difference is public perception about the competency and ethics of government and business is troubling. In terms of ethics, the public gives business a score that is 18 points higher than government. For competency, the gulf is even more significant – 46 points higher.
The public’s trust in various professions is also tested in the Edelman survey. The profession of teachers comes out on top – 77 per cent have confidence in them. At the bottom of the rankings are journalists – trusted by 36 per cent of New Zealanders. This score has dropped two percentage points since last year, and it compares to a global average of 49 per cent. Trust in the profession of “government leaders” is also low, at 40 per cent. This figure has dropped five percentage points in a year.
To what extent are public leaders involved in disinformation? According to the Edelman survey, the public regards politicians, business people and journalists to be deliberately engaged in trying to mislead with “false or gross exaggerations”. Survey respondents were asked whether these three groups in New Zealand “are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations”.
Journalists and reporters scored worst – 60 per cent deemed them guilty (up four percentage points). Government leaders were next – 51 per cent, followed closely by business leaders on 50 per cent.
A Democratic Deficit
The two surveys discussed above are only the latest in a long list of indicators that something is going wrong in New Zealand democracy. Plenty of other evidence indicates that a democratic deficit has been growing in recent years.
Some of this trend surely relates to the experience of Covid and some of the governing decisions of the last government. However, it would be mistaken to focus in any sort of partisan way on trying to understand the current democratic deficit. Many of these trends were occurring before the last government and seem to be still happening under the new one.
Ultimately, these trends should provoke an awareness that this is a deep-seated problem in our political system that isn’t about individual politicians or political parties. It’s much more systemic than that. And although the above evidence is based around perception, it goes hand in hand with plenty of other concerning trends in politics at the moment, such as reduced public engagement (especially in terms of voter turnout), increased political polarisation and declining social cohesion.
More debate and discussion are required about what is producing New Zealand’s “broken politics” and perhaps even a “broken society”.
Key Sources
Acumen (2024) Acumen Edelman Trust Barometer 2024
Jacqui Van Der Kaay (Democracy Project): Politicians need to lift their game
Victoria University of Wellington: Trust in Institutions and Democracy symposium
Stephanie Worboys (Maxim Institute): Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.
