American poll says N.Z. still well liked

Press, 30 May 1985, Page 4

American poll says N.Z. still well liked

By

HUGH NEVILL

NZPA staff correspondent Washington

A poll conducted in February and early March shows that Americans continue to hold New Zealand in good regard in spite of negative publicity over the port-calls row. Their over-all rating of New Zealand was higher this year than it was in 1980, when an identical poll was carried out. The Gallup poll, of 1350 adult Americans, asked no questions on the port-calls issue but came at the end of a period when New Zealand was often on the front pages. ! This does not appear to have had much effect on knowledge of New Zealand’s style of government, however, with only 56 per cent putting it down as “democratic.” That was just 1 per cent better than in an identical poll in 1980, but;respondents

were confused about the Governments of almost all the countries on the list.

Twenty-one per cent described the New Zealand Government as “civilian authoritarian,” which 19 per cent answered in 1980. The respondents were asked to rate how much they liked or disliked selected countries on a minus five to plus five scale. New Zealand was third — behind Canada and Australia — with a positive balance of 87 per cent and a negative balance of eight per cent. In 1980, the positive balance was 83 per cent and the negative balance nine per cent. In comparison, positivenegative figures for some other countries were: Canada, 1980: 95/2, 1985: 96/1; Australia, 1980: 91/4, 1985: 94/2; Japan, 1980: 84/12, 1985: 84/12; West Germany, 1980: 81/15, 1985: 84/13. When the list is broken

down to show only plus four and five and minus four and five — those people with the strongest feelings — NewZealand ranks sixth, behind Canada. Australia, Japan, West Germany, and Israel but with figures virtually unchanged from 1980. Twenty-seven per cent gave New Zealand a highly favourable rating in 1985, compared with 28 per cent in 1980, with two per cent giving it a highly unfavourable rating each time. Australia got a 49 per cent highly favourable rating each time. Canada’s rose from 75 per cent to 78 per cent, Japan’s from 30 per cent to 35 per cent, West Germany’s from 33 per cent to 34 per cent, and Israel’s from 28 per cent to 29 per cent. Another question was howimportant each respondent thought it was for the United States to try to get along well with various countries in order to pursue

its interests throughout the world. New Zealand ranks fifteenth on this list among those who answered “very important” (21 per cent), the top eight places going to Canada (77 per cent), the Soviet Union (68), Japan (62), West Germany (58), China (55), Saudi Arabia (49), Israel (42) and Australia (29). Twenty-three per cent of the respondents (in both 1980 and 1985) described Japan's Government as mixed military-civilian authoritarian. Seventeen per cent described Australia as civilian authoritarian (66 per cent said democratic), and only 61 per cent described the Chinese Government as Communist, with 15 per cent putting it down as military authoritarian. The poll was carried out for a Washington “Think Tank,” Potomac Associates, to gauge changing perceptions of Asia.