A jealous Aussie
J Murphy writes at news.com.au:
I AM not happy. New Zealand has beaten us again.
Not in Rugby. I’d be fine with that. They have the All Blacks but we beat them in cricket so it all evens out.
This is much bigger. New Zealand apparently beats us in prosperity. The Legatum Institute just dropped its annual prosperity index and New Zealand is now number one. Number One. We languish at sixth.
Sixth isn’t bad but first is better. Part of why we now have net inwards migration from Australia after decades of going the other way.
New Zealand gets glowing praise in the report.
They praise it for high levels of personal freedom, but especially for being “a nation with the strongest social capital in the world, where 99 per cent of New Zealanders say they have family or friends to rely on in times of need. “
(Could this amazing social capital be why NZ seems to be able to manage political stability and orderly transitions while we suffer through political incompetence and repeated back-stabbing?)
The PM transitions have been a contrast!