Guest Author • Oct 21, 2020 •
Ian Mason and Robert McLachlan Climate change was a small but perceptible part of the recent election. On climate change, Labour pointed proudly to their record of legislating for net zero emissions by 2050 (nicknamed the ‘Zero Carbon Act’), establishing a Climate Change Commission to set carbon budgets and advise the government, and for strengthening the Emissions Trading Scheme by … Read More
Guest Author • Oct 01, 2020 •
Robert McLachlan, Massey University New Zealanders are polarised on climate change policy, according to a recent Stuff/Massey University survey of 55,000 readers. This puts the two major political parties in a difficult position as they seek options that are credible yet appealing to voters. Just 30% of Labour voters and 22% of National voters think the country is “more … Read More
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