UMR’s mood of the nation

A lot of interesting data in UMR’s annual mood of the nation. It includes:

• Average country right direction in 2014 was 62% to 28% wrong direction
• The most followed political news story (after the election result) was the Shane Jones Countdown allegations. The MP that bailed on Labour as he no longer fitted got their most impacting story
• Gap between National and Labour went from 10% in 2013 to 18% in 2014
• The least trusted institution is trade unions at 23%, below organised religion at 27%
• 62% of NZers now own a smartphone
• 76% are on Facebook, 30% on Linked In and 22% on Google Plus and Twitter
• Net approval ratings of world leaders is Obama +70%, Merkel +37%, Cameron +30%, Abbott +7%, Putin -64%
• The level of interest in various sports is rugby 71%, netball 51%, league 47% and cricket 45%
• Only 23% of NZers could correctly name Jim Bolger as the PM in 1994. More people thought it was Clark or Shipley.