Pages

Tuesday, January 2, 2001

Facts And Figures That You Won't See On Campaign Posters


We’ve all seen the ‘Campaign Posters’ and very effective they are too but here are some of the less well known about facts and figures for New Zealand. Unfortunately some of them make for very grim reading.

Despite propaganda to the contrary CRIME RATES are actually very high.

Says who? well the OECD for one. They say “New Zealand is second only to Ireland in 26 OECD countries in internationally comparable data on vehicle, theft and contact crimes. 22% of New Zealanders experienced such a crime in a 12-month period, compared to an OECD average of 16%.” You’re more likely to experience this type of crime in New Zealand than in almost any other country in the OECD.

In 2009 there was a sharp rise in HOME INVASIONS. There were 112 compared to 85 in 2008. The attacks are happening in both rural and city areas, see link and link.

An independent think tank, The New Zealand Institute released a study which showed that New Zealand has the fifth highest MURDER RATE (assault mortality) in the OECD.

A UNICEF Report Ranks NZ as among the worst in OECD for CHILD ABUSE. A 2003 UNICEF report showed that New Zealand has one of the highest rates of child death from maltreatment (physical abuse and neglect) among rich OECD countries.

NZ ranked 25th on a league table of 27 countries with 1.2 deaths per 100,000 children. For two examples of what goes on read “Man jailed for shooting daughter and “Nia Glassie

New Zealand, along with Norway, is unusual in that SUICIDE RATES for young adults are greater than for older people. Most OECD countries have higher suicide rates for older people.

The NZ economy is among the most indebted in the OECD and its LIVING STANDARDS lag behind many other OECD member. Relatively low labour productivity growth since the 1970s “has opened up a large income gap relative to the OECD average and an even greater one with leading countries such as the United States. The poor productivity performance is explained to some extent by New Zealand’s special geographic situation, which hinders the transfer of human, physical and technological capital from abroad, but also to sub-optimal policies in a number of areas” for more see link

More Facts and Stats

Crime
Living Accommodation
  • Tauranga has been ranked one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in with housing described as ‘Severely Unaffordable. It was the 20th city on the list, more expensive than Auckland (22) and and Christchurch (31)
Economy
  • Migrants are important to the NZ economy. The migrant population of 927,000 people had a positive net fiscal impact of $3,288 million in the year to 30 June 2006. The net fiscal impact per head was $2,680 for recent migrants, $3,470 for intermediate migrants and $4,280 for earlier migrants. The net fiscal impact for the New Zealand-born population was $915 per head.
Children and Youth
  • The NZ Human Rights Commission released a report in which it identified significant human rights issues in relation to violence in New Zealand Schools.
  • One child is abused to death every 23 days. “Thousands of children in New Zealand are suffering horrendous abuse at the hands of the people charged with nurturing them every day. And even more are suffering lower levels of abuse and neglect.”
  • Arson in schools amounts to $3.2 million a year.
  • School vandalism costs $10 million a year, money that would otherwise be spent on educating children. The damage consists mostly of smashed windows, graffiti and break-ins. The worst hit school is Auckland’s Papakura High School where $262,000 was spent on cleaning up and or repairing vandalism.
  • The average university student’s debt is $16,000 and loans must start to be repaid as soon the borrower reaches a salary of least $19,084. Those who leave the country to avoid making repayments are charged charged interest at  6.8 % PA after six months away. It’s one reason why many graduates don’t return home.
Health and Death
  • There is a workforce crisis in New Zealand’s hospitals. Specialist senior doctors are being lost and there is a shortage of cancer specialists. Staff are lost to Australia (where the salaries are 35% higher) and to private practice. The causes are low pay by international standards, overwork and lack of resources to do the job.
  • Prostitution is legal in New Zealand. A 19 year-old woman recently sold her virginity to the highest bidder on an on-line NZ auction site.
Green Credentials
These are NZ’s OECD and World rankings (click on links for data sources)
1st highest country for
*Property crime victims
*Car ownership – 720 per 1000 people, even more than the USA’s 675 per 1000 (2005)
*Rape victims In NZ only 9% of sexual offences get reported to police, and of those only 13% of rapes resulted in convictions. The median age of victims is 23 and Europeans account for 61% of the victims – See ‘Conviction rate in sex cases
2nd highest country for
3rd highest country for
*Loss of electrical power between source and destination
7th fattest country in the world
62.7% of New Zealanders are obese according to the WHO, Kids watching too much TV and ‘modern development’ mostly to blame
8th highest country for Economic Crime (Fraud)
* See PWC Economic Crime Survey
For Road Death and Injury Statistics,  see: Road Death Toll.
For today’s posts see: latest posts

8 comments:

  1. Good ole NZ :) ahhh... such a sweet place to live

    ReplyDelete
  2. damn i have completely dropped the idea of migrating to NZ,
    no way i will survive even for a month with such media-core sub standards.
    thanks buddy for all the inputs

    ReplyDelete
  3. Toothless Kiwis:
    http://www.3news.co.nz/Pulling-teeth-dental-care-in-New-Zealand-proves-too-expensive/tabid/303/articleID/92131/Default.aspx

    http://www.grownups.co.nz/discuss/show/id/72/page/2

    Many migrants have complained that they do not have enough money for dental care here because the cost of living and dental care are both so high.

    ReplyDelete
  4. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10632075
    It is true that extreme "street" poverty is prevented by the social welfare system in NZ, but the number of people living in relative poverty compared to other Western countries is very high in New Zealand. Remember that a) even if their superannuation seems relatively high, the cost of living is much higher, and this is not taken into account, and b) the elderly are worth less in terms of the priority given to them in the health care system, so they are not as comfortable.

    http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2009/04/nz_pensioners_relatively_best_off_in_oecd.html
    Read "Laraine's" post - and Christopher's: "Take a bundle of items a pensioner might reasonably need: Housing, water, food, clothes, transport, bowls club subscription etc. and then tell me how well the social welfare system in each country meets those needs." Fuel poverty is an issue, and many pensioners have to chop firewood for heat.

    Pensioners are stealing basic food items:
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10632075
    Dave Norton, loss prevention manager for Foodstuffs South Island, said elderly people who stole from the chain's supermarkets generally took "basic, everyday food items".

    ReplyDelete
  5. Some of your readers would like to mention the poor quality and overpriced Internet.

    http://www.geekzone.co.nz/freitasm/7199
    This is an article about New Zealand's dashed high hopes for better Internet.

    quote:
    "there's a complete lack of innovation in New Zealand companies."

    (Maybe it is that No. 8 wire they keep using). They can be as innovative as they like as long as they continue to use that gauge of wire to fix anything and everything. If the cellotape doesn't work.

    He goes on:
    (quote) specifically on telecommunications, what I see around is a bunch of dinosaurs ready to kill their customers and eat them - just getting closer to their own extinction. And we don't have any new companies to replace them.
    New Zealand telcos live in the land of "let's charge as much as we can because we can, even though the services we provide lack quality in all levels." I lost (the little) faith I had in this specific segment. Up until last year I thought Telecom New Zealand could do it. But now I know they tried but can't. TelstraClear seems to want everything for nothing and leaves customers in the dark - cable services haven't seen a decent upgrade for ages, they keep pushing their home entertainment options to next month, they don't communicate with customers about their problems, and so on. Vodafone seems to be plagued with customer services problems, which I am told we will always be solved by projects that never end. And they also seem to hold the keys that would allow us access to some interesting technologies that never arrive here.

    In another story:
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10638108

    Thousands condemn secrecy of internet copyright talks - hosted in Wellington.

    Americans are accustomed to Kiwis making the most sarcastic and uncalled for remarks about their "Land of the Free". Surprising then that breezy, open Wellington, New Zealand is the city hosting an international conference where nations with the dirty corporate interests they so decry are finding ways to severely curtail Internet users' privacy. "But that's just business".

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for mentioning them, subsections for infrastructure and innovation are obviously needed.

    ReplyDelete
  7. http://www.foodnews.co.nz/19616/kiwi-ingenuity-key-to-golden-arches-success/

    who would have thought!
    "Kiwi ingenuity was the key ingredient for bringing one of the world’s largest and most successful franchises, McDonald’s, to New Zealand". And they hate it SO much!

    ReplyDelete
  8. New Zealand is over rated! Not worth to live there.

    ReplyDelete

Please leave your message here for review.
In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails