What does fairness mean to New Zealanders?
Koi Tū is working in partnership with the New Zealand Institute for Economic Research (NZIER) and the New Zealand Treasury to better understand what New Zealanders think about fairness.
We invite you to participate in the conversation on this Pol.is interactive platform.
What is Pol.is?
Pol.is is an online tool that helps gather and make sense of differing perspectives and feedback from large groups of people on issues that affect them. Participants ‘vote’ on a series of statements (by indicating ‘agree’, ‘disagree’ or ‘pass’) and can add their own statements for others to vote on, furthering and enriching the conversation.
This approach combines qualitative and quantitative methodologies to identify areas of consensus and well as points of ongoing contention or disagreement.
What is this conversation about?
We want to understand how New Zealands think about fairness.
There are four questions we aim to answer:
- How do you think social and economic outcomes should be distributed across society? (the conception of fairness)
- What types of outcomes do you think are most important for fairness? (the currency of fairness)
- How do you think social and economic outcomes are currently distributed?
- To what extent do features of our society make New Zealand fair or unfair?
Answering these questions will support public sector agencies to provide advice on the distributional and equity implications of policy choices.
This project also aims to raise awareness in the general public of different perspectives on fairness and economic inequality, supporting more informed public discussion.
Join the conversation
Share your ideas and vote on the ideas of others in this interactive online conversation. Explore the conversation as it develops and check back every few days to review and vote on new ideas.
You will see a set of short statements to ‘vote’ on by clicking ‘agree’, ‘disagree’ or ‘pass’.
You can also enter your own statements for others to vote on. We encourage you to think about the conditions potentially underpinning inequality, and which of these are problematic (or not) for Aotearoa New Zealand.
How to take part
- Answer a statement by clicking Agree, Disagree or Pass/Unsure. The next statement will automatically appear.
- If you can’t bring yourself to categorically agree or disagree with a statement, the challenge is to write and submit a ‘better’ one!
- To add a statement, fill out the Share your perspective box and click submit.
- Click on Opinion Groups or the Majority Opinion button to explore areas of agreement and difference.
- Come back every few days to vote on new statements, review opinion as it is emerging and to add new statements for others to consider.
- You don’t need to ‘vote’ on all the statements at one time – Pol.is will only present you with statements you haven’t considered.
Statements and moderations
- Statements should be about a standalone idea that improves existing statements, or presents new perspectives, experiences, issues, or proposals.
- Statements can be a maximum of 140 characters, so be concise.
- Statements should not include multiple ideas, but you can submit more than one.
- Statements must be on topic, clear and should not name people, be offensive or be duplicates of other published statements.
- The moderation team will aim to accept or decline submitted statements within 72 hours.
Voters, votes and statements are anonymous
- Neither participants nor the moderators can see who has submitted a statement or how any individual has voted.
- The reports that Pol.is generates do not identify anyone.
- Participants must register and sign in to take part in the Pol.is.
- No participants will be identified in any analysis or reports.
- View our full Privacy Statement here.
Results
- There was significant agreement between participants about what fairness means and what is important for fairness. However, there was disagreement about whether life in New Zealand is fair and about what drives differences in outcomes.
- People are more likely to agree that fairness is about how outcomes are achieved rather than what the outcomes are. Specifically, people were most likely to say that fairness is about equal opportunities and reward for effort, individual rights and freedoms, and social, legal and political equality.
- Most New Zealanders feel that quality of life and access to opportunities and services are more important for fairness than income or wealth.
- New Zealanders disagree about how fair life actually is. More people think life is fair for them than not, and more people think that life was fairer 30 years ago. People tend to think life is less fair for other people than for themselves.
- When it comes to the fairness of economic outcomes in particular (rather than fairness in general), people were most concerned about ensuring everyone has enough and prioritising those who are worse off than others. However, this was seen as less important than equal opportunities.
- Most New Zealanders belong to one of two opinion groups. The larger group believes that people have different starting points in life, and fairness means providing resources or opportunities to overcome those differences. The smaller group – which tends to be older and more male – believes that people already have equal opportunities and should be rewarded for their efforts or choices.