Roy Morgan State of the Nation Breakfast

Had the opportunity to go to the Roy Morgan State of the Nation Breakfast as they compared Wellington to Auckland to the rest of the country.

Here were some of the interesting insights…

– More religious people in Auckland.

– Baby boomer property speculation impacting on younger generations being able to buy 1st home

– More Wellingtonians use public transport than Aucklanders

– Only 2/3rds of Auckland were born here.

– 10% of people with mortgages in stress

– 21.8% 14-29 are unemployed

– Newspapers plunging while Internet surging

– more doing personal exercise but fewer are playing team sports

– nzers are more socially progressive than many countries but don’t see ourselves as such

– 58% of NZers agree homosexuals should adopt

– 61% say Maori culture important to the economy

– one in five NZers weren’t born here

– 27.7% renting

– Auckland growing at twice the rate as the rest of the country

– National 44% Labour 32%

– unemployment in NZ is 9.7%

What was most interesting to me culturally was that NZers are very socially progressive in many areas, yet we don’t regard ourselves as socially progressive.

Media transformations online are killing off landlines and old media, but newspapers are adapting by getting on line. Digital communities are far more important and expect a massive boom in twitter.

What was most interesting to me economically was the high number of NZers who are in mortgage stress. I think this may lead to the interest rate NOT going up because any slight uptick will see thousands of mortgagee sales. I also don’t think interest rates would go up because if it did, our economy would face a tsunami of hot currency that would flood our market sending the dollar stratospheric. That helps explain why the National Government are so hell bent on including Hamilton as part of South Auckland in a massive urban sprawl to alleviate supply issues in a hope to make housing affordable because raising interest rates to ease the housing bubble would cause far ranging impacts that would make the NZ economy a basket case.

In terms of Wellington vs Auckland. Wellington is more financially secure, but they seem to be aware of the dangers in the economy for everywhere else. Auckland is far more diverse culture wise and seems more forward focused (is that a nicer word for selfish) with higher levels of immigration generating competition, but Aucklanders are less financially secure than Wellington.

Interesting morning