About

Kiwiblog

Kiwiblog is the personal blog of David Farrar. I set it up in July 2003 after several months of getting addicted to reading other blogs. Prior to blogging, I used to participate in Usenet Internet newsgroups, since 1996.

I blog on any issue or thing I find interesting. Now this is mostly politics, but also quite a bit on technology and the Internet. And as my friends use the blog to keep track of what I am up to, there’s a fair amount of personal stuff also, photos of places I have been, food, theatre or movie reviews, or just anything I want to share.

Kiwiblog gets around half a million pageviews per month. I normally blog three to five items a day, and we often get 500+ comments a day. There are over 10,000 registered commenters.

Standards & Policies

While it is a personal blog, reflecting my views, in recognition of the fact that it is now widely read and has some influence on the public discourse, Kiwiblog was a member of the Online Media Standards Authority since from 1 October 2014 to 31 December 2016 when it got subsumed by the NZ Press Council which we are now an associate member of. I try and follow the Press Council Principles.

If you have a complaint about any item on Kiwiblog, I encourage you to read our complaints policy.

My disclosure statement is here. It has my political background and other stuff.

You may also want to read the editorial policy, privacy policy and comments policy.

DPF

I have a personal website at davidfarrar.nz which details the various things I do such as governance, polling, public speaking, political campaigns, media engagements and parenting.

If you want some info on me, there was a profile on me in the NZ Listener in August 2012.

I am a regular commentator in the media on political and technology issues. I consider myself to be highly informed on polling, New Zealand politics, Internet domain names and electoral law issues.

I am reasonably knowledgeable on politics in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States plus on Internet public policy issues. Oh and also on good pinot noirs.

I can bluff and sound reasonably coherent on wider Internet issues, social media and plays.

If you would like me to do a speaking engagement, my normal fees are $500 to speak to a conference, $250 to be a panelist if outside Wellington, $100 to be a panelist in Wellington and $75 for regular slots on radio. These are negotiable and can be waived for good causes.

My media commitments are in my disclosure statement.

A brief bio, which can be used for speaking engagements is:

“David Farrar is the owner and director of Curia Market Research which he founded in 2004. Curia is a specialist opinion polling and research agency. David is also well known as the editor of the popular Kiwiblog which started in 2003. Kiwiblog receives around 500,000 visits a month.

David previously worked in the NZ Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders. David is also a former Vice-President of InternetNZ, and chaired its policy committee for over a decade. He is also a former director of the .nz registry company and a former chairman of the .nz domain name commission, which sets polices for and regulates the .nz name space.

In 2013 he co-founded the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union and serves on its board.”

Acknowledgements

A number of people kindly assist with Kiwiblog. Kokila Patel is the sub-editor. That doesn’t mean she is responsible for my typos!  Kokila arranges the daily general debates, and the notices of upcoming political TV shows and the like.

Also big thanks to the volunteer moderators who approve comments.

Also big thanks to Inspire Net for both the hosting and the technical support.