{"id":206404,"date":"2025-12-29T08:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T08:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/206404\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T08:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T08:42:10","slug":"nz-report-card-2025-how-the-country-fared-in-28-key-global-and-domestic-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/206404\/","title":{"rendered":"NZ report card 2025: How the country fared in 28 key global and domestic rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alexander Gillespie* of \"The<\/a><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\"Kids<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Alexander Robertson\n<\/p>\n

Standardised testing and regular progress assessment became key features of the education system this year, so why not apply those same principles to New Zealand as a whole?<\/p>\n

There’s an important difference here, of course. This exercise is about prompting discussion and debate, and should be read with a degree of caution. The metrics tell us only so much – but it’s still possible to trace the nation’s ups and downs.<\/p>\n

As one year ends and other beckons, it might also be time to make some collective new year’s resolutions based on the various trends outlined here.<\/p>\n

Near the top of the class<\/p>\n

Civil liberty: The top mark is from Freedom House which underlined New Zealand’s consistent near-perfect score of 99 out of 100 for political and civil liberties – second equal with Norway, just behind Finland.<\/p>\n

Security: In the Global Peace Index, New Zealand moved up two slots to third place globally (behind Iceland and Ireland, but best in the Asia-Pacific) for safety and security, low domestic and international conflict, and degree of militarisation.<\/p>\n

Corruption: Transparency International recorded a gradual decline from being in equal top place in 2021 to fourth in the latest survey – but still relatively corruption-free.<\/p>\n

Gender equality: The annual Global Gender Gap Report recorded New Zealand slipping a place to fifth most gender-equal country (but top in the Pacific region).<\/p>\n

Rule of Law: A continued improvement in the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index saw the country ranked fifth globally.<\/p>\n

Quality of life: The Economist Global Liveability Index placed Auckland seventh most liveable city in the world.<\/p>\n

Doing well or better<\/p>\n

Economic freedom: The Index for Economic Freedom, which covers everything from property rights to financial freedom, placed New Zealand 11th – down from sixth last year, but still “mostly free”.<\/p>\n

Happiness: New Zealanders are not quite as happy as they were, slipping a place to the 12th most-cheery nation in the World Happiness Report.<\/p>\n

Media freedom: The country began to climb back in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, up from 19th last year to 16th.<\/p>\n

Competitiveness: New Zealand moved up a spot in the Global Competitiveness Report, now in 31st place (but still well below the 20th ranking from 2021).<\/p>\n

Innovation: On the Global Innovation Index, which measures a range of social and economic indicators, New Zealand slipped one place to 26th.<\/p>\n

Economic performance: The Economist ranked New Zealand as the 31st best-performing economy in 2025, up two places from 2024.<\/p>\n

Foreign aid: New Zealand’s overseas development aid continued to increase to an estimated US$780.8 million, representing 0.32 percent of gross national income, placing it 17th among OECD-ranked countries.<\/p>\n

Terrorism: The Global Terrorism Index recorded a significant improvement of 42 places, with New Zealand now ranked 94th and “very low” risk. While the national terror threat level remained low (meaning a terror attack is a realistic possibility), this was a positive development.<\/p>\n

Room for improvement<\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence: A “light touch” policy approach to artificial intelligence (AI) regulation will not have improved a relatively low 43rd ranking in the Global Index on Responsible AI.<\/p>\n

Employment: Economic numbers at home told another mixed story, with unemployment growing to 5.3 percent (160,000 people) in the September quarter – now above the OECD average.<\/p>\n

Inflation: The inflation rate fell rapidly but has now pushed back to 3% – lower than the anticipated OECD average of 4.2 percent but higher than the 2.4 percent anticipated earlier.<\/p>\n

Public housing: As of October, the total stock of public houses continued to grow, up to 87,338 (an increase of 7875 since the middle of 2023), but supply remains well behind demand.<\/p>\n

Housing affordability: Good or bad news according to one’s perspective, the average house price was $907,274, considerably down from its peak at the turn of 2022 but largely unchanged since last year.<\/p>\n

Incomes: Median weekly earnings from wages and salaries increased by NZ$37 to $1380 in the year to June, but lagged behind the inflation rate.<\/p>\n

Must do better<\/p>\n

Climate change: The Climate Change Performance Index recorded another fall for New Zealand, now down to 44th position and classified as an overall “low” performer.<\/p>\n

Suicide rate: There were 630 suspected self-inflicted deaths in the 2023-24 financial year (the latest available statistics), a small increase on the year before. That represents a rate of 11 per 100,000 people – lower than the average rate over the past 15 years, although the rate of decrease seems to have stalled.<\/p>\n

Prisons: Incarceration rates are growing fast, moving past 10,680 people behind bars in March (up from a low of 7500 in 2022), with strong growth projected.<\/p>\n

Gangs: The estimated number of patched gang members and prospects passed the 10,000 mark for the first time.<\/p>\n

Child poverty: Figures from early 2025 suggested little or no change in the child poverty rate from the year before, with one in seven children living in households experiencing material hardship.<\/p>\n

Mental health: UNICEF scored New Zealand a less than reputable 32nd place for worsening youth mental health rates.<\/p>\n

Homelessness: Estimates put the likely number people living without shelter in New Zealand at more than 5000.<\/p>\n

Migration: A net migration gain in the year to October of 12,400 was the lowest since 2013 (excluding the Covid years). This disguised a dizzying churn between arrivals (138,900) and departures (126,400), with more than 46,400 citizens leaving for Australia.<\/p>\n

In short, 2025 was a difficult year. New Zealand often scores well or shows improvement on global indexes, but look closer to home and the devil is in the detail. To borrow a phrase from old school reports: Shows great potential but needs to try harder.<\/p>\n

* Alexander Gillespie is a Professor of Law, University of Waikato<\/p>\n

– This story was originally published by The Conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Alexander Gillespie* of Photo: RNZ \/ Alexander Robertson Standardised testing and regular progress assessment became key features…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-206404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}