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New Zealanders are relatively content with their lives, with most saying they are in good health, can afford everyday needs and feel safe in their homes after dark.

Telephone interviewers talked to 500 people in each of 12 main cities and districts and 2000 people from the rest of the country for the third National Quality of Life survey.

It found just over nine out of 10 people rated their quality of life as good or better.

Almost nine out of 10 people in the 12 cities said their overall health was good or better, and about 86 per cent in the 12 cities and 88 per cent outside them said they had enough money to cover everyday living costs.

The survey of 8100 people was paid for by 12 participating councils and the Ministry of Social Development.

Since the last survey, in 2006, far fewer people said they had not visited the doctor when they wanted to because of the cost.

The number of people who said they wanted to visit a GP in the past year but didn’t fell from 20 per cent in 2006 to 6 per cent.

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New Zealand’s older citizens are well looked after by the Government – in fact, better than in the world’s richest nations.

Only 2 per cent of New Zealand’s retirement-age population were classed as below the poverty line in a 2008 OECD study. Just 13 of the 30 countries had poverty rates of less than 10 per cent among older people.

The study of 30 OECD countries compared the income level of retirement-age New Zealanders to median disposable income levels.

However, several organisations who work with older people said the study does not reflect the financial reality of New Zealand’s retirees.

A transtasman comparison found Australia’s older population in far worse shape, with 27 per cent of over-65s below the poverty line.

Michael Littlewood, co-director of the University of Auckland Retirement Policy and Research Centre, said: “There are several possible explanations for New Zealand’s favourable international position but the most obvious difference between New Zealand and the other 29 OECD countries is the simple, generous New Zealand superannuation pension.”

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New Zealand’s murder rate appears to have almost halved in the past 20 years despite an overwhelming public belief that crime has got worse.

Police statistics show that for 44 years until about 1970 the murder rate fluctuated around an average of six a year for every million people.

The rate leapt to an average of 21 murders per million people annually from 1985 to 1992, but has dropped steadily ever since.

Last year’s rate was 12.1 murders per million people.

Victoria University Institute of Criminology director Michael Rowe said the decline coincided with similar falls in violent crime in Australia, the United States and Britain since the early 1990s.

Unemployment has dropped since then in all three countries, until recently, as have the numbers in the most violence-prone group – males aged 15 to 29, who declined from 12.3 per cent of New Zealand’s population in 1991 to 10 per cent in 2006.

The murder rate is regarded as one of the best measures of trends in actual violent crime, because it is least likely to be affected by changing police policies or public attitudes which are believed to have affected recent family violence statistics.

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