If you work in a large organisation, I’m sure you’ll be familiar with the “general reminder” e-mail or memo sent out to all staff. “Could all staff please remember that in future….?” or “Just a friendly note that….” and so on. In my experience, these messages are usually directed at just one or two colleagues, but are sent out in a cloaked fashion to all employees in order to avoid broaching the specific issue with the person in question. Like the not-so-subtle reminders to employees, ACT’s decision to adopt a conscience-vote model for all bills is a general one, but...
The latest Roy Morgan poll finds that New Zealand First has increased its support from 3.5% to 5.5%. ACT, however, continues to be down in the cellar at 1%, where it has been pretty much for the last two years. Now, I’m no fan of the Duncan Garner-style breathless commentary (“will come as a massive blow to the…”) on individual polls, but I think it might be useful to look at the differences in ACT and NZ First behaviour in recent weeks. First and foremost, New Zealand First found itself a winning issue for its potential constituents. The support of...
For the benefit of readers living north of the Waitaki River, I reproduce comments by Clarke Isaacs, radio reviewer for the Otago Daily Times (7/11/07, p. 28): The normally mild-mannered, even-handed Geoff Robinson, co-presenter of Radio New Zealand National’s Morning Report, was uncharacteristically aggressive the Tuesday before last when interviewing Act New Zealand leader Rodney Hide about his intended complaint to the much-publicised right-cross Cabinet Minister Trevor Mallard landed on National’s Tau Henare. Robinson’s interviewing partner, the feisty, no-holds-barred Sean Plunket, might have to look to his laurels should Robinson find that he quite likes a fiery questioning style when...
An opinion piece by Finlay Macdonald in today’s Sunday Star-Times discusses a survey of New Zealand journalists which apparently found they lean more to the left than right. Are journalists biased? It’s a bit like asking how long a piece of string is you need more information. Nevertheless, the authors of a recent survey of New Zealand newsrooms bravely posed the question of political “orientation” to a self-selected sample of hacks who were asked to rate themselves on a scale from hard left to hard right. The fact that most considered themselves very mildly left or just “neutral” possibly also...