The Role of Government

A post by Lindsay Mitchell led me to this survey by Massey University of 2,250 people on what they think the role of Government should be.

Key results are:

* Provide health care for the sick 98%
* Provide decent standard of living for the old 96%
* Protect the Environment with laws 92%
* Provide industry with help it needs to grow 87%
* Give financial support to low income university students 79%
* Keep prices under control 78%
* Provide housing for those who need it 72%
* Reduce income inequality 50%
* Provide decent standard of living for the unemployed 49%
* Provide a job for everyone who needs one 38%

The top three are the only ones which had over 50% say the Government should definitely fo this. The next one down, relating to industry support has only 28% say definitely and 59% say probably.

And in terms of how successful the Government has been on key issues:

* Protect Environment 50%
* Fight Unemployment 50%
* Deal with security threats 50%
* Provide decent standard of living for elderly 40%
* Provide health care for the sick 37%
* Controlling crime 26%

The low scores on the last two should be of concern. On crime 42% say they have been unsucessful.

In terms of spending on areas, we have

* Health 84% want more vs 1% less
* Education 70% vs 1%
* Police 64% vs 2%
* Superannuation 51% vs 2%
* Environment 39% vs 10%
* Defence 24% vs 22%
* Arts 11% vs 41%
* Dole 6% vs 59%

Overall though they found “In general, most New Zealanders (60%) are in favour of cuts in government spending, but in specific areas there are marked differences in support for more
or less government spending.”

On tax they found that tax rates for different levels of income are:

Low income earners – 65% too high v 35% about right
Middle income earners – 70% too high, 30% about right
High income earners – 50% too high, 35% about right, 15% too low

Some nice food for thought.