The great debate - does pineapple belong on pizza?

22 May 2017

With inspiration from Bill English’s infamous ‘pizza night’ social media post we decided to settle the debate once and for all, does pineapple really belong on a pizza? and for that matter, what about spaghetti?

Using our monthly online omnibus survey of 1000 New Zealanders over the age of 18 we posed a range of normal, and possibly not so normal pizza toppings and asked respondents how much they liked or disliked them. We used a one to five scale where one meant ‘strongly dislike’ and five meant ‘like very much’.

Unsurprisingly the most mainstream topping we asked about was also the most favoured, with more than two-thirds (68%) of New Zealanders saying they like (4+5) pepperoni/salami on their pizzas. Pineapple was also liked as a topping by more than half (53%) of respondents, which is good news for Bill English considering his choice of toppings. However, not such good news for Bill was that only 19% liked the idea of spaghetti on their pizzas, so he may have to drop that topping the next time he goes posting on social media.

Among National’s own supporters, fondness for pineapple on pizza was significantly higher at 61%. National voters were also slightly more accepting of spaghetti on their pizzas with 22% saying they like it as a topping. Green voters were very wary of spaghetti on pizza with only 8% saying they liked it as a topping.

Comments | read more

Trump in one word

20 April 2017

Last month, in an online public poll, we asked 1000 people to describe Donald Trump in one word.

Question: 'What is the one word that best describes Donald Trump?'

Comments | read more

New Zealanders' views on religious groups

30 March 2017

Last month, in an online public poll, we asked 1000 people to give a rating of how they feel about eight different religious groups

Respondents were asked to rate a variety of groups on a "feeling thermometer" ranging from 0 to 100 where 0 degrees means as cold and negative as possible and 100 degrees means as warm and positive as possible.

Tied for highest warm feelings were Atheists and Buddhists (both averaged 64 degrees). This was followed by Jewish, Protestants, Hindu and Catholic (58-62 degrees). The two lowest groups were Muslims (50 degrees) and Mormons (47 degrees).

Comments | read more

Pick a number

03 March 2017

Last month, in a general public poll, we asked 1000 people to enter a number between 0 and 100.

The idea was to see if responses were random or there was some pattern behind the selection.

Below is a 'word cloud' of responses, where the size of the number represents how many times it was mentioned.

Comments | read more

Is the New Zealand justice system fair?

23 November 2016

In a recent public survey we asked:

"Do you think the New Zealand justice system treats everybody equally regardless of race, occupation and personal connections?"

17% said yes - it does treat everybody equally
74% said no - it does not treat everybody equally
9% said they were unsure

Comments | read more

Kiwis’ opinion of themselves

07 October 2016

Last month, in a general public poll, we asked people to rate themselves as above average, average, or below average across a range of personal attributes. The results show that there is a tendency to rate ourselves as being above average on kindness, sense of humor, and intelligence. Around half (46-51%) of respondents said they were above average on each of these while just 2-4% said they were below average. However, in terms of fitness and wealth we are significantly harder on ourselves with considerably more people saying they are below average (37% and 32%) than above average (14% and 17%).

Comments | read more

New Zealand's refugee quota

14 August 2015

Recently in an interview on The Nation, Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy stated she would like to see New Zealand’s quota for accepting refugees increased. This view is also shared with NGOs such as the Refugee Council of New Zealand and Amnesty International. Since Devoy’s comments garnered quite a bit of public attention we wanted to know how New Zealanders feel about the amount of refugees New Zealand accepts per year.

All numbers are again from a UMR SAYit poll of n=1000 New Zealanders conducted between March 31st and April 16th 2015. The margin of error is +/- 3.1%.

We initially asked: ‘Currently the quota for the amount of refugees which New Zealand accepts per year is 750 refugees. Do you think this is…too little, about right or too high’

Across all New Zealand, 25% thought that the 750 quota was too low while 44% about right and 23% too high. The remaining 8% were unsure. The biggest differences between New Zealanders were which party they vote for.

Comments | read more

What does Christmas mean to you?

19 December 2014

Last December we asked a series of questions on the importance of Christmas and other public holidays. I covered most of the questions in this blog around Easter on whether shops should be allowed to open on those days, but left one question out. Now seems like a better time to share the results of that question: 'what does Christmas mean to you'. It's a bit old now but I see no reason to think things would have changed all that much.

Results are from a UMR SAYit poll of n=1000 New Zealanders conduced in December 2013. The exact question was: "if you had to choose one, which of the following aspects of Christmas is more important to you - remembering the birth of Jesus Christ, or a time to be with family and friends".

20% chose 'remembering the birth of Jesus Christ'
80% went with 'a time to be with family and friends'.

I think we can see this as pretty clear evidence of the secularisation of New Zealand (as I've documented before here). We did force people to choose one option, and no doubt many Christians would have chosen both if we'd allowed them to, but what this does show is which of the two options people saw as the more important - and overwhelmingly that's spending time with family and friends.

There's not much difference in the demographics either, apart from age and rather surprisingly location.

Comments | read more

Is there a housing crisis? Part 3 - the causes

17 December 2014

This is the third & final blog on our housing poll, and looks at what people think is causing the housing crisis. It covers how many think it is due to incomes not increasing, property investors and overseas buyers driving up prices, along with red tape, LVRs and insufficient houses being built.

Comments | read more

Is there a housing crisis? Part 2

11 December 2014

Part 2 covers two questions - 'how important is it for people to own their own homes?', and 'how likely is it that the next generation of New Zealanders will be able to own their own home." You could simplify those down - what do people want for housing, and what do they think will actually happen in the future?

Comments | read more