Peter Griffin • Oct 19, 2017 •
After days of reading reports from frustrated reporters camped out in front of the elevators in Bowen House, we finally have an answer on the shape of our next government – a Labour-New Zealand First coalition. The Greens, with a confidence and supply arrangement with Labour, will be in the mix in some capacity as well by the time … Read More
Brendan Moyle • Aug 28, 2017 •
Freshwater policy has become one of the NZ election issues of this year. With that in mind, the Science Media Centre asked the parties the following question: What policy decisions does your party propose to tackle the issue of freshwater quality degradation in our country’s waterways? I’m going to analyse the responses to this question. Initially though, there are some … Read More
Brendan Moyle • Nov 11, 2016 •
There seems to be a fair bit of bashing of Pollsters of late. This is not surprising given that Brexit was expected to vote remain, and Clinton was expected to win the US presidential vote. The naive criticism is that the Pollsters got it wrong. I’m going to call this naive as in the case Brexit the polls were saying … Read More
Eric Crampton • Nov 10, 2016 •
I wrote a short piece last night for The Spinoff on last night’s election. I’ll change my views if we get refined exit poll data that tells me otherwise. But it also seems to be the conclusion others are now drawing too. I also talked about this with Mark Sainsbury this morning. It isn’t an income inequality class war … Read More
Michael Reddell • Nov 10, 2016 •
For the last 24 hours, the US election has been much much more interesting that anything New Zealand-related that I might have written about. Even my 10 year old came home from school yesterday telling me that her class had been following the early results intensely, even if (she reported that) some of the offspring of liberal Island Bay … Read More
James Zuccollo • Oct 12, 2016 •
I had a bit of a play around with mapping the voter return data from the 2016 Auckland local body elections (raw data available here). I looked at it two ways: What areas had the highest/lowest turnout? (i.e. where is participation high/low) What areas had the highest raw number of votes? (“who elects the mayor”) Maps addressing these two … Read More
John Pickering • Sep 18, 2014 •
No one understands the electoral maths of the NZ electoral system including the electoral commission apparently. Last night I put the latest figures from the “Poll of Polls” into the electoral commission calculator and I discovered the calculator was broken! I put the figures in with United Future winning one electorate seat, but when it crunched … Continue reading → … Read More
John Pickering • Aug 21, 2014 •
We all care about health – ours, our family’s, and even that of one or two politicians (perhaps). We also care that the 15 billion dollar annual health budget is spent on health care that works. I contend that both these cares are only as good as the health research that underpins the treatments we receive. Therefore, … Continue reading → … Read More
Michael Edmonds • Jul 23, 2014 •
Well it is less than two months until the next general election in New Zealand and I must admit I feel more unsure than ever about who I will vote for. Traditionally I have tended to vote Labour because they have always seemed to have a good social conscience while avoiding what I used to interpret as the anti-science attitude … Read More
Bill Kaye-Blake • Nov 15, 2012 •
One of the curious stories out of the US presidential election is about the consultants on the Romney campaign. Apparently, they made a lot of money: Much of Romney’s operation, for example, appears to revolve around a close-knit group of insiders at American Rambler Productions, which took in more than $160 million through mid-October, records [...] … Read More