Cost of living tops the list again. In Ipsos’s 34th NZ Issues Monitor, 63% of New Zealanders named inflation and the cost of living as one of the three most important issues facing the country. That’s its highest level since May 2023.
Healthcare and hospitals came second at 44%, and the economy third at 34%. Ipsos says that top three order has held since February 2025. Unemployment, at 21%, passed housing, at 19%, for fourth place, only the second time that’s happened since the survey began in 2018.
Ipsos, the global market research firm, surveyed 1,003 New Zealanders aged 18 and over online between 3 and 11 September 2026. The results are accurate to within 3.5 percentage points, and Ipsos says the study had no external sponsors or partners.
These are the issues the incoming government inherits. Each one has an official measure behind it.
The top five, by the numbers
Prices first. Stats NZ’s consumers price index rose 3.7% in the year to the September 2026 quarter. Petrol was the biggest single driver, up 19.1% over the year, and electricity rose 9.3%.
Prices rose 0.7% in the September quarter itself. International airfares, local council rates and vegetables pushed them up, while cheaper petrol pulled the other way.
Health is measured against the Government’s health targets, which Health New Zealand, the Crown entity that runs public hospitals, reports each quarter. In the final quarter of the 2025/26 year, 76.3% of emergency department patients were seen within six hours. That’s up from 73.9% a year earlier, just short of the year’s 77% milestone and below the 2030 target of 95%.
Faster cancer treatment met its 87% milestone for the year. Childhood immunisation reached 83.7% against an 87% milestone, which Health NZ says is the highest coverage since the target began in 2024.
The economy grew 0.2% in the June 2026 quarter and 1.7% over the year to June, per Stats NZ. GDP per capita, which allows for population growth, rose 0.1% in the quarter.
Unemployment was 5.6% in the June 2026 quarter, up from 5.4% in the March quarter, per Stats NZ’s Household Labour Force Survey. That’s 171,000 people out of work and looking for it.
On housing, Cotality, the property data firm, puts the national ratio of property values to household income at 6.7 in the June 2026 quarter. That matches its long-term average and is down from a peak of 9.8 in late 2021. Mortgage repayments on a new loan took 40% of gross household income.
“Mortgage rates remain well below their recent peaks, property values are still below their highs, and household incomes have continued to rise,” says Kelvin Davidson, chief property economist at Cotality NZ. The improvement isn’t even, though. Christchurch’s ratio of 6.7 still sits above its own long-term average of 6.0.
How to read the rankings and the data
An issues ranking measures worry, not conditions. Ipsos asks people to name three issues, so one can slide down the list because others have climbed, even when it’s no better on the ground.
Climate change, named by 13%, is at its lowest since Ipsos began tracking it in 2020. Taxation, at 8%, is at its highest since the 2023 election.
Official data also runs a step behind. CPI and GDP come out quarterly, and Health NZ published its April to June health target results in September 2026.
Measures differ by method too. Cotality compares property values with household income, while other price-to-income measures use sales prices or wages, so their ratios won’t match.
Some sites now pair issue polls with government data. KPI.nz, a volunteer-run site from the team behind theFacts.nz that’s privately funded by donors it doesn’t name, combines Ipsos with Curia polling sponsored by the lobby group the Taxpayers’ Union.
For employers, Stats NZ’s figures show more people looking for work. The underutilisation rate, which counts people who want work or more hours, rose to 13.8% in the June 2026 quarter, or 440,000 people. Average ordinary hourly earnings rose 2.8% over the year to $44.62.
Ipsos’s next wave will show whether cost of living holds the top spot once the new government is in place.
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