The ABC reports:

Embattled construction union the CFMEU and its members have broken federal law more than 2,600 times, costing the union more than $24 million in fines, new court documents claim.

The Fair Work Commission has outlined the union’s history of breaches and made allegations of threats and intimidation in the construction industry as part of its Federal Court case to put independent administrators in charge of the union.

The crackdown follows media reporting about stand-over tactics and bikie infiltration, which the Fair Work general manager Murray Furlong told the court were evidence the union had “ceased to function effectively”.

“Since 2003, the CFMEU has been the subject of findings of contraventions of federal workplace laws on more than 1,500 occasions, plus 1,100 contraventions by its office holders, employees, delegates and members,” Mr Furlong said in a submission.

He added approximate 213 court cases had resulted in “total penalties ordered against the CFMEU of at least $24 million, plus at least $4 million ordered against its office holders, employees, delegates and members.”

It’s amazing it took so long for action. It resembles organised crime more than a union.

The Hipkins/Tinetti 6-year education combination has left a huge amount of NZ young people in a deep hole. The state of our literacy & numeracy for children has been well canvassed (although Tinetti tries to say 2/5 doing okay is not so bad. Hipkins just blamed National Standards – a measurement tool – not a teaching one).

As you see below at the high school level the results have been sliding too.

In terms of the top school qualification – Education Counts just released:

In 2023, 37.8% of all school leavers attained UE Standard, a 0.7 percentage points decrease from 2022.
In 2023, UE Standard was attained by 17.6% of Māori school leavers overall (in 2020 it was 22%)
UE Standard was attained by 21.9% of Pacific school leavers overall.
UE Standard was attained by 60.2% of Asian school leavers overall.
UE Standard was attained by 41.2% of European/Pākehā school leavers overall.

We are now getting down 1 in 5.68 Maori students leaving school with UE. It is shameful.

Here is Level 1 NCEA for Leavers.

In 2023, 12,048 Māori school leavers (71.7%) attained NCEA Level 1 or above. This was a decrease of 2.5 percentage points from 2022. That is; 28.3% of Maori young people are now leaving school for good without even attaining LEVEL 1 NCEA. Each has been funded for 13,200 hours and our schools have failed to get them over the lowest of hurdles.

To put it even more starkly: During 2023 – 3,410 Maori youth left school for good – with no qualifications.

Tinetti – with Jack Tame on Q&A – offered no answers – just a whole lot of couldn’t care less and don’t cross the unions.

Her only stated plan was to cancel Charter Schools if/when she gets back into power.
– it won’t matter if they are improving outcomes for students – especially Maori. (She simply talked down her nose about Maori organisations applying to run Charter Schools … she knows much better).
– it won’t matter if parents, students and the teachers working in them love them.
– it won’t matter if underserved communities and towns with no education choice love the new schools in their area.
Tinetti knows best – and only the unions matter to her – and the Charters will go!

NB: she espoused no plan to shut down the many State schools that, especially under her watch, were/are demonstrably not working.

I am working with a new Charitable Company and we have applied for four Charter Schools. Two in the central city of Auckland where there are no walk-up schools for 57,000 families. One in Epsom, on transport routes, for the range of students who need 1:15 classes and other features of our model. One in Warkworth – with a growing population and huge desire from families for choice. We are also VERY open to working with State schools who see the benefits of operating as Charters and will seek to change.

Tinetti takes no responsibility for the disgraceful state of our education system but claims to be highly knowledgeable. I will never attain the heights of being a Minister of this important sector – but from my lowly position I extend an open invite to debate the former (and aspiring) Minister on cause, effect and solutions to our education crisis.

Alwyn Poole
alwyn.poole@gmail.com

NZIER report:

The NZIER Shadow Board is divided over whether the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) should decrease the Official Cash Rate (OCR) in the upcoming August Monetary Policy Statement. Over half of the Shadow Board members viewed that a 25 basis-point decrease in the OCR is needed now, given the continued slowing in the New Zealand economy and the labour market, and annual CPI inflation is nearing the 1 to 3 percent inflation target band. The rest of the members recommended the Reserve Bank keep the OCR at 5.50 percent.

What concerns me is non-tradable or domestic inflation is still close to 6%. Overall inflation is down due to the tradable sector. I think the RBNZ should wait for a further quarter of inflation data before deciding to ease. Australia has just had their inflation rate sneak up, and we don’t want to have the same here.

Audrey Young writes:

Christopher Luxon was right; it was an unusually petty line of questioning yesterday from Chris Hipkins compared to the many issues deeply affecting Kiwis at the moment. …

The other issue Chris Hipkins raised with the PM was the matter of Paul Goldsmith in his capacity of Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister amending a letter drafted by an official to an Australian Cabinet minister to remove te reo Māori references in the greeting: Tēnā koe was replaced with dear, Aotearoa New Zealand was replaced with New Zealand, and the sign-off, Nāku noa, nā, became Yours sincerely.

Labour only get a few questions a day, and they decide to use one of them on the fact that a NZ Minister prefers to use English when writing to an Australian counterpart. Do they really think this is what will matters to NZers, rather than health, education, incomes etc?

Judith Collins announced:

The Government is ending New Zealand’s nearly 30-year ban on gene technology outside the lab in a move which will bring health, productivity and climate gains for New Zealanders. 

Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins today announced legislation ending the ban and implementing a dedicated regulator to oversee applications to use gene technology will be introduced to Parliament by the end of the year. 

“This is a major milestone in modernising gene technology laws to enable us to improve health outcomes, adapt to climate change, deliver massive economic gains and improve the lives of New Zealanders,” Ms Collins says. 

This is great news. Our current regime is ridiculously restrictive – much more so than the Royal Commission recommended. Every review in the last couple of decades has said it should be liberalised, but little ever happened. It shows the difference a determined Minister and Government can make.

“The changes we’re announcing today will allow researchers and companies to further develop and commercialise their innovative products. Importantly it will help New Zealanders to better access treatments such as CAR T-cell therapy, which has been clinically proven to effectively treat some cancers. It can also help our farmers and growers mitigate emissions and increase productivity, all of which benefits our economy,” Ms Collins says. 

This could make a significant change to our agricultural methane emissions. If you really think climate change is an existential threat, you should be gleefully celebrating this announcement.

Yahoo reports:

In an audacious armoured assault into the Kursk region of Russia, Ukrainian armed forces have advanced further than either side in almost two years. The attack by at least two brigades took the Kremlin by complete surprise. Or at least it was launched and seized significant territory before any counter move could put a stop to it. So much for the supposedly transparent battlefields of the 21st century.

The advantages of surprise in war are transient but even after four days fighting, Russian forces have yet to contain the incursion. That’s hardly surprising given the thinly spread defences along this part of the border. So far local irregular forces and conscripts have been sent in and at least one battalion of reaction forces was apparently largely destroyed by what seems to have been a long-range missile strike.

When Russia invaded Ukraine they expected the war to be over in a few weeks. I bet you they never expected a consequence would be having Ukraine take control of a part of Russia!

Tama Potaka released:

The Government’s plan to end the large-scale use of emergency housing is working, with new figures showing a 32 per cent reduction in the number of households living in motels, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says.

“Emergency housing is one of the biggest public policy failures we’ve ever seen in New Zealand, growing from a few families using it for brief periods into a situation where thousands of tamariki were growing up in motels,” Mr Potaka says.

“National promised change and in Government we are delivering it, with more than 1000 tamariki moved out of motels and into homes under our watch.

“From last December to June this year, the total number of households living in emergency housing has gone from 3141 to 2133 – a 32 per cent reduction in just six months. We have seen over 1000 tamariki depart emergency housing during this period.

Can anyone deny this is a good thing. Motels are good for tourists and travellers, not for kids to grow up in.

“In April, we introduced the Priority One category which puts whānau with dependent tamariki who spend longer than 12 weeks in emergency housing to the top of the social housing waitlist.

“As of July, 540 whānau have been supported out of emergency housing under this priority.

Very sensible.

“The next step, starting at the end of this month, is to bring in clearer obligations for emergency housing assistance.

“For example, to ensure emergency housing is used by people in genuine need, people may be asked to provide evidence of their housing situation when they apply.

“People staying in emergency housing have responsibilities they must agree to and meet. If they stay longer than seven nights, they’ll need to complete agreed activities to help meet those responsibilities. 

“This includes paying their emergency housing contribution, and activities which will help them get a home. This could include things like meeting with a housing broker, attending a Ready to Rent course, engaging with support services or looking for a private rental. 

“At each re-grant appointment, their case manager will check they’ve completed the activities they agreed to and talk with them about any support which may be available. This is an important part of helping to set people up for housing success.

“If people don’t meet their obligations without a good reason, they’ll receive a warning. After two warnings, if they don’t meet their obligations again, they won’t be able to get an Emergency Housing Grant for 13 weeks.

Emergency housing has become free accomodation for some, including gang members. It should be for emergencies and temporary.

The Free Beacon reports:

The United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency has spent more than nine months denying its employees work alongside Hamas, dismissing these claims as Israeli propaganda. On Monday, the organization fired nine staffers for participating in the Oct. 7 terror spree that killed more than 1,200 Israelis.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) announced that it will fire a handful of its employees based in the Gaza Strip for working alongside Hamas as it slaughtered Israeli civilians. “For nine people,” UNRWA spokesman Farhan Haq said, “the evidence was sufficient to conclude that they may have been involved in the seventh of October attacks.”

This is code for the evidence was so strong, we could no longer pretend it wasn’t.

It is shameful that NZ has resumed funding UNRWA.

Stuff reports:

The number of people claiming refugee status in New Zealand has exploded in the past two years, statistics released by Immigration New Zealandshow.

In the 11 months to 31 May 2024, a total of 2220 people claimed refugee status in New Zealand.

Half of these asylum seekers – 1108 people – were from a single country: India.

Before the Covid pandemic, the number of refugee claimants averaged only 400 people a year.

So a 400% increase in asylum claims strongly suggests, there is gaming.

It’s not because more genuine refugees are coming to New Zealand.

Pre-Covid, approval rates for refugee claims were around 35%, but that rate has dropped to 21% in the past three years.

So the vast majority are not legitimate.

Refugee claimants qualify for Emergency Benefits from Work & Income, and free legal aid from lawyers specialising in refugee claims. In 2000, it was estimated by INZ that each refugee claim costs New Zealand $30,000 – that figure is likely to be a lot higher now.

Let’s say it is now $50,000. The annual cost could be $100 million, which is not available for other purposes.

Refugee claimants are currently being granted 12-month ‘open’ work visas while awaiting their claims to be heard. This encourages more people to try coming to New Zealand to gain asylum-seeker privileges.

Rather an incentive.

Stuff reports:

Two government departments are investigating the mysterious NZ Edutech Trust charity, which took $500,000 in public funds without any clear evidence of what it’s been spent on – and a chairman who was already under scrutiny by Internal Affairs. Steve Kilgallon investigates.

They said they would work with children and schools, offering educational classes, tai chi, art workshops, parenting courses, cultural festivals and even try to “alleviate poverty” – and they got over half a million dollars in community funds to do that work.

But now the NZ Edutech Trust is facing two government investigations into what it actually did with all that money – and its founding trustee has said she felt “tricked” into being part of the organisation.

The Trust’s chair, Shun Xu, also known as Shun Liebenberg, has already been tied up in an inquiry into another charity of which she was a trustee, the Angel’s Children’s Educational Foundation. That charity received almost $1m in similar grants but appeared to shutter operations after a Stuff story in 2022 raising questions about what work it had actually done.

So the Chair had a bad track record, yet still got hundreds of thousands in this new charity.

The NZ Edutech Trust’s was duly formed in August 2021, with its founding trustees being Xie, Liebenberg, and Liebenberg’s husband, Tjaart Liebenberg.

Xie said she’d tried and failed to apply for grants from different providers in the past, but the new trust quickly had success with gaming machine trust BlueSky, which gave them $561,000 over 17 different grants between July 2022 and August 2023.

This is the amazing part – they got 17 different grants. Now I can imagine you make get an initial grant based on a proposal, but surely no sensible body would keep handing them out without proof of delivery.

BlueSky is a trust which distributes community grants from pokie machines. It states its purpose as providing grants for “education, community cultural and arts festivals, public amenities, sports facilities, amateur sport and other charitable and non-commercial purposes that are beneficial to the community”.

It did not respond to Stuff’s questions about what the grants were intended for, what reporting it required on their use, and what auditing it conducted.

Blue sky should be investigated also.

NewstalkZB reports:

Te Pāti Māori says it “will no longer engage” with the New Zealand Herald after the newspaper published a front-page advertisement bought by lobby group Hobson’s Pledge. 

This is astonishing. This isn’t just a political party effectively banning a media organisation because of their editorial stance, but they are banning them because they don’t like one of their advertisers. They are saying that if you accept an advertisement from groups we disagree with, we will refuse to deal with you.

I recall Muldoon banning Tom Scott from his press conferences because he didn’t like what Scott wrote. This was covered by numerous other media scores and scores of time. Everyone was outraged that a leader would do this. Well what TPM are doing is arguably worse,. They are saying that if you even accept advertisements we dislike, we will refuse to deal with you.

Is the parliamentary press gallery going to complain to TPM about this? Will the Media Freedom Committee? Will the NZ Council for Civil Liberties? Will NZME competitors editorialise is solidarity with NZME?

More recently we have Winston Peters regularly sparring with and sometimes attacking the media. There have been dozens or scores of articles decrying him when he does this.

So lets wait and see whether TPM are held up to the same level of scrutiny as other politicians.

The irony is that what TPM is doing, is very similar to what Donald Trump does. Trump hates it when Fox News runs advertisements critical of him, and he does late nights posts attacking them, and urging people to swap to other mediums etc.

Parliamentary parties and politicians should not be using their power to try and prevent lobby groups from being to advertise.

I recall seeing Lisa Carrington win her first gold medal in 2012. I was in a bar in Martinborough and everyone was watching and cheering. Her down to earth nature shone through as much as her athletic achievement.

She has now won her eighth Olympic gold medal, and even more remarkably has done it over four Olympics. Only seven people in Olympic history have won more gold medals than her. The closest any other NZer has done is four for Ian Ferguson.

She is our greatest Olympian of all time.

Barry Soper writes:

It’s not often in this business that you can sit back with some satisfaction and feel justified a year later that a story you broke resulted in an outcome fair to all.

The formal part ethnicity played in hospital waiting lists caused a political storm.

It was justified by the then Labour Government whose Health Minister Ayesha Verrall said she was happy with the policy that gave Māori and Pasifika patients priority over Pākehā and other ethnicities.

Less popular with patients!

The current Health Minister Shane Reti stated the bleedingly obvious – clinical decisions should be made on health need first.

The message seems to have hit home at the bloated Health NZ which now says a fundamental relook at the system is required.

One of their gloriously anonymous spokespeople there was quoted as saying that they will now look into the possibility of adopting a new prioritisation tool across the whole health system, but emphasised no decisions had been made.

The decision shouldn’t be too difficult to make; give health care to those who need it first, rather than expecting them to jockey for position on a waiting list based on their ancestry.

It shouldn’t be difficult indeed, but for the last Government it was.

The Herald reports:

The dire state of Warner Bros Discovery’s New Zealand finances has been laid bare – a massive $138 million loss in 2023, including a $79.5m impairment.

It was the collapse of Newshub that was the catalyst for the Government to decide to back Willie Jackson’s bill to force Internet companies to pay some sort of levy to failing media companies.

But as you can see the problems facing linear TV stations is so huge and fundamental that the levy will be like trying to stop a burst dam with a small rag. Linear TV is going the way of the home video store.

Garry Moller writes:

If I had it my way, I would scrap many of Wellington’s cycleways, and do it better. Allow me to elaborate. …

For Wellington to thrive, ample on-street parking is essential. Despite the influx of more public service employees and contractors in recent years, central Wellington is struggling. Many long-term Wellington residents, like myself, feel the inner city is in a state of decay and is losing its once vibrant soul. Putting in one cycleway after another is not helping the situation. To the contrary, they are making things worse.

The cycleways were made with good intentions, but they have taken away many parking spots for residents and businesses. They are now hurting small and medium-sized businesses and degrading property values.

Small businesses depend on customers being able to find convenient parking. Without it, they suffer — we all do — and the vibrancy of our city diminishes, as it is.

Cycleways are good but parks are also good. We shouldn’t do one at the expense of the other.

Dedicated cycleways that do not detract from traffic flow are great. For example, the cycleway to Ngauranga Gorge and the cycleway from Oriental Bay to Evans Bay are excellent, although their cost-benefits are still questionable. These routes offer safe paths for cyclists without significantly impacting traffic or residents. In contrast, the cycle way in Aro Valley, the one in Island Bay, and the one from Te Aro to Brooklyn, to name a few, are problematic.

We have some good ones and some awful ones.

What I am saying here is that cycleways should be separate from main arterial streets and not impede traffic flow or lead to the loss of parking spaces. Merely removing traffic lanes and carparks to make way for rarely-used cycleways is nonsensical.

Absolutely. Do cycleways away from main streets, like the one to Petone which looks to be amazing.

And for those not familiar with his name, Gary Moller can’t be described as someone who is anti-cyclist. To the contrary he is the current UCI Masters world champion cyclist for his age group!

I (and Curia) have just resigned as members of the Research Association of New Zealand. It is something I never thought I would do, and do with great sadness.

I have been an enthusiastic member of the industry body. 

I joined in 2004 when I formed Curia Market Research. It was an honour to be nominated by (Professor) Jack Vowles and Gabriel Dekel.

I served on the executive of its predecessor. I was the lead author on the NZ Political Polling Code. I was a guest speaker or panelist at AGMs, including last year’s one.

So what happened?

Up until around two years there had been no issues. But over the last two years the complaints process has been weaponised against me. I can’t even count up how many complaints there have been. I will cover in some detail the significant ones.

Now lots of people have to put up with complaints processes. I wish I could be like Mike Hosking who probably doesn’t even blink if someone complains about him to the BSA.

But these numerous complaints have caused me huge stress. I won’t go into the details of it here, but it has been very significant. 

Yesterday I saw an e-mail from RANZ that, not only had the PSG upheld the latest complaint against me, but that it was considering a recommendation that could involve suspension to expulsion.

I was absolutely stunned. I could not believe how what I saw as a subjective dispute over question design could possibly meet the threshold for such a move. I’ll get into the details later, but basically it was over whether a client should be allowed to ask:

The UK health service (the NHS) has stopped the use of puberty blockers, which begin the gender transition process, for children under 16 as it deemed they are too young to consent. Do you support or oppose a similar ban in New Zealand on the use of puberty blockers for young people 16 or younger?

My first response was considering getting people to complain against polls from other companies (I have a large file of potential complaints). But I calmed down and tried to remember my motto of don’t be an arsehole or deliberately harm others. That is why I have never ever encouraged a complaint against another company, despite many many opportunities. I have even tried to talk people out of them.

I decided I would trust the process and argue my case to an independent panel. I was very confident that there is no way the current dispute could be seen as resulting in a sanction that I don’t think has been used in recent history. I engaged a lawyer and I started collating information. I looked at processes for other professional bodies, and also obtained detailed advice on whether the actions of RANZ could breach the Bill of Rights by putting pollsters in a position where they have to refuse questions on controversial issues, because if they accept them they get suspended or worse.

So I had my plan. I was confident my chances of not having a decision of suspension or expulsion was pretty damn good (but of course you can’t know). I was all set to spend what would have been tens of thousands of dollars, confident in my belief that I should trust in the process.

But then I reflected what happens if I do win. It won’t stop. I’ll still have the usual people complaining about most of my polls and I would be having to run Curia with the massive anxiety that every single poll I prepared would have to be defended, arguing over what is an incredibly subjective area of question writing.

This is insane!  I do political polling and many people oppose some of what my clients stand for.  But this is weaponising an appeals process.  It forces people like myself into the impossible position of either not serving my clients, or trying to satisfy a professional body that should be objective and neutral, but I sadly don’t think is being either.

So, with the deepest regret I resigned from RANZ today. 

Since I made the decision I feel so much better, that I know it is the right thing to do. My stress levels have improved knowing I don’t have to spend the future fighting endless complaints against me

In the rest of this post I want to detail a bit of history of Curia, how important reputation is to me, the whole area of question design, and details of some of the complaints (including where I could have done better), and some suggestions for RANZ.

Finally I am going to cover a proposed accountability scheme for Curia going forward, so people can still raise issues in good faith and get them resolved.

20 years of Curia

Curia for many years was most well known as being National’s pollster. I first got involved in electorate polling for National as a Young National volunteer in 1993. I was one of many callers, but had a real interest in it so Al McLauchlan and Jack McFaull who ran the programme for National showed me what they did, and answered my many questions.

In 1996 I ended up working in Parliament and Al retired from his polling roll. With MMP  coming  the party engaged a professional polling form for most of their polling, but I was asked to take over from Al and do occasional electorate polls using a team of volunteers .

The results were good enough that for the 1999 election ,my internal team top volunteers was asked to supplement the polling from the external pollster and in 2002 I was doing most of the polling for National. I was very proud that they placed equal trust in what I could do with a team of volunteers, with companies that had been operating for decades.

In 2004 I had been in Parliament for 8 years and was exhausted (when I left they replaced me with three staffers) and I had so enjoyed doing the polls, I thought I would take a leap in the dark and set up my own polling company – Curia. National agreed to become a client (my decision wasn’t dependent on that though) and Curia was born.

Since then I have done work for over 300 different clients. I have never had to advertise – it has all been word of mouth. I literally could not count up how many actual polls I have designed and analysed, but it is probably over 3000 

I’m very proud to have provided polling services to five NZ  Prime Ministers and four Opposition Leaders.

And while I am known as a National supporter, I provide a professional service regardless of politics. I have actually provided polling services to 10 different political parties that range the entire political spectrum. 

I have done polling for Labour MPs and Ministers. I have polled for Green Party members and Alliance members standing in local body election. I have polled for lobby groups I agree with and lobby groups I totally disagree with. I have even polled for groups on opposing side of an issue such as euthanasia. I told both groups that I had been asked to poll for the other side also, and they both consented as they really wanted to use Curia and trusted me to be absolutely professional. 

Reputation

It is hard to understate how important reputation is to me. As I said, I have never had to advertise for clients. I am able to have discussions with senior Labour MPs where they trust me not to ever quote them. I have sat on numerous cross-party parliamentary groups on particular issues where MPs from ACT to the Greens take party and we have some very undiplomatic conversations.

I also take pride in my relationship with many in the media. I think I have declined just one interview request in the last eight years or so. I always give my honest opinion to them, however I do of course keep some things to myself.

I believe Curia has a good reputation for accuracy. In the 2023 election we were one of only two companies that had all parliamentary parties within the margin of error. In 2014, John Key kindly called me the best pollster in New Zealand in his victory speech. 

In 2023 an independent researcher (https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/12585241/ ) found that Curia had the least divergence from the all-firm trend between 2020 and 2023.

The public polls for the Taxpayers’ Union in 2023 correctly predicted the winner in Northland, Auckland Central, Napier and Ilam. The Tamaki poll had Brooke (who had been regarded as a long shot) just 2% behind, which arguably helped her momentum to win the seat.

The polls for the Māori electorate seats were less accurate but they are notoriously difficult to poll (and if I get to poll them again, I am going to try some new things to identify Māori roll voters) but they did point to the risk of Nanaia Mahuta losing, which wasn’t widely expected.

By contrast in 2017 one RANZ member produced a poll which was 22% out on the National-Labour gap and in 2011 another RANZ member had a poll which was 16% out on the National-Labour group. I wonder aloud what does more damage to the industry – polls that get a general election result completely and massively wrong, or arguments over the wording of questions?

No polling company should be judged by their last pre-election poll.as all companies have polls that turn out not to to be very accurate  Curia, like all companies, have polls that are not as accurate as one would like. In 2023 I had National below their actual result (but within the margin of error) and in 2020 I had them higher (as almost everyone else did as their support fell away in the last week). 

The vast majority of polling companies in NZ work very hard to get accurate results. I often recommend my competitors if people don’t want to use me. I have sent clients to UMR/Talbot Mills, Research NZ, Colmar Brunton etc.

Question Design

Two of the three upheld complaints I received related to the wording of questions on controversial or sensitive issues. Question design is a very subjective area. Every day in the world there are thousands of people critiquing a poll question, claiming it is leading or biased etc. Just as people critique political arguments and fact checkers critique claims (and some fact checkers have been shown to do a horrible job).

What is absolutely key is that any poll report must include the exact question asked. This allows people to judge the results in light of the wording.  I actually think people are quite good at working out if question wording has had an impact on results.

Clients commission polls for a number of reasons, and this impacts question design. Some just want to know what opinion is on an issue without any context given, for their own decision making. Some try to explain the pros and cons of an issue to then see what a more informed rather than instinctive reaction is. Some have a firm view on an issue and wish to test what language or facts are most likely to persuade people.

For example one client asked me in 2019 to poll four different phrases in a poll on euthanasia – assisted dying, euthanasia, assisted suicide and assisted killing. We tested support and opposition on each phrase so they would know which phrase was most helpful to them.

The client wants questions that are of value to them. This does not mean they get to ask any old question, and nor does it mean they get the result they want (many clients have received results which were unhelpful to them, and didn’t publish them) but it does mean as a pollster you need to understand the client. I have described polling as both an art and a science and question writing is an art. I have no idea how many polling questions I have written but if I’ve done 2,000 or so polls, it could well be many thousands. 

It is extremely rare for me to just accept the questions the clients propose. I almost always suggest changes, and/or warn that their proposed wording will make it easier for people to downplay the results.

In fact, the client, whose poll was the subject of the final complaint, has said they use me despite the fact I actively campaign and oppose them on probably around 80% of the issues they campaign on because they like the fact I will give pushback on the questions, to make them more defensible. 

I also fact check questions, so that any assertion in the question is robust. For the question on puberty blockers for under 16 year olds I actually spent almost two hours reading the Cass Report.

A poll by another company for the Better Public Media Trust claimed that 60% of NZers supported the TVNZ/RNZ merger, but the actual question was:

The government is planning to merge TVNZ and RNZ into a new state-owned public media service, with an extra $109 million per year, which equals to $22 per person per year. If this organisation provided new content for niche, minority and regional audiences while keeping the current TV, radio and online services as well, would you support it?

Now I think it is a pretty ridiculous question as it rests on a premise that is hypothetical. It’s like saying would you support merging the DHBs together if it meant every hospital kept providing their current services, plus you get 50,000 more operations. Who would say no to that?

I would strongly advise the client against the question, on the basis that, while some media might run it without scepticism, it will have zero impact on the actual decision makers. But if they insisted, I would be okay with running it, because clients do have the right to ask questions. 

But now we seem to be in a situation where a decision to run wording like the above can result in potential expulsion from the Research Association. This should be of concern to many in the industry.  

I would have thought the threshold for finding a question is biased is if it is factually incorrect or uses incredibly inflammatory language. I guess examples would be.

Will you vote for the former war hero John McCain or Bill Clinton who dodged the draft?  Or, would you rather spend $500 million on new cancer drugs to save lives or on new frigates to help the Defence Force kill enemies more efficiently?

But the two upheld against Curia have been ones where I think reasonable people could agree to disagree.

The complaints

The first of the significant complaints was in 2022 over a poll for the Auckland Mayoralty. It was because I had only listed the major candidates, not all 15 of them. Basically, a guy who had a miniscule chance of winning (he was not in the top eight finishers) was complaining that he had not been included in his own right.

Now with polls on voting, there are three ways broadly you ask the voting question.

1. Unprompted. You don’t even give them the options. You just ask who they will vote for. This works well for parliamentary polls about parties as most people know the parties and have a preference. It is not very effective for local government polls where many don’t even know who is standing.
2. Prompt major candidates and include another option. It is often clear who the major candidates are. Clients basically just want to find out the relative support amongst those in with a shot. This is absolutely normal in political polling.  Do you think many US pollsters ask people if they are voting for Chase Oliver or Randall Terry for President?
3. Provide a list of all candidates. This is feasible for online panels but for phone polls it just isn’t practical to read out 15 or 20 names. You just end up with many more undecideds.

Now this particular complaint was not upheld, but I had to spend considerable time justifying why we hadn’t included a candidate who had no chance of winning. I was surprised the complaint was even accepted as substantive. 

The second complaint was about a survey of academics done by the Free Speech Union, which I analyse for them. Now I am quite happy to say there were things I could have done better with that poll. Curia is far from perfect.

A lot of the issue was whether a response rate should have been included and whether it was a probalistic sample or not. My practice is to include response rates for polls of communities where the client has a relationship with them. So, when I poll members of an industry group, I give a response rate. For polls which are regarded as probabilistic you do a margin of error. As the poll of academics was not on behalf of the universities (they sadly had no interest in knowing the views of their staff on academic freedom) it was done by the FSU trawling e-mails off university websites and I saw it as an unsolicited poll, akin to a public poll. 

Now I should have, in hindsight, included the response rate. It was sort of there implicitly, but it should have been explicit because the low response rate does mean it is difficult to know how well those who responded reflect all academics. Because many academics hate the FSU, they were arguably less likely to take part.

Also due to a miscommunication, I did not see the final report from the FSU and their report placed more reliance on the actual percentages than was justified. However they did have a cover note I insisted on noting there was a low response rate.

After this complaint was upheld, I reviewed all our templates against the Code of Practice and developed a new client policy stating explicitly that any information they release must be run by Curia in advance, and this policy is now automatically attached to quotes for new clients.

I also included extra details of methodology on our standard report template, and even go so far as to provide a paragraph summarising the methodology that clients are requested to include in media releases, with an explicit request for media to include the statement.

So what I am getting at is I took the finding very seriously. I made significant changes.  

The next (third) complaint was about the wording of a poll on the Golden Mile. The wording was: “Do you think the Wellington City Council should commit to spending $139 million, (of which the outgoing Government pledged $71 million) on the Golden Mile project considering the blowout in the Town Hall renovation and growing Council debt?”

The Professional Standards Group found against it because it introduced two different concepts – the Town Hall blowout and the Golden Mile project. I understand their point, but I believe that is quite justifiable in this case– there is only one pot of money. All of politics is about trade-offs. If the Government is running a surplus you might support a spending project while you wouldn’t if they have huge deficits. 

So I thought the question was fine, and the PSG didn’t. Its fine to ask about an imaginary outcome for merging TVNZ and Radio NZ together, but not to mention Council spending blowouts with relation to another major Council project.

.  Here is a poll questions asked by another company:

After previously signing up to international commitments to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems, home to deep sea coral and sponges, the New Zealand government has this year lobbied for bottom trawling to continue in these sensitive areas.

Some warn that bottom trawling is known to destroy deep sea coral ecosystems, with New Zealand being the only country still using this method in the South Pacific.

You could argue that is leading as it doesn’t provide any context in support of bottom trawling. But no complaints about that.

The fourth complaint was from an individual who has complained literally scores of times on almost every single poll I have published in the last year. I have probably had over 200 e-mails from him. He is the obvious vexatious litigant, but I still had to go through the formal process of having one of his complaints assessed. 

The final complaint was about this question earlier this year:

The UK health service (the NHS) has stopped the use of puberty blockers, which begin the gender transition process, for children under 16 as it deemed they are too young to consent. Do you support or oppose a similar ban in New Zealand on the use of puberty blockers for young people 16 or younger?

I have not seen the decision of the PSG yet but I am told they decided the question was biased. This staggers me as the decision by the NHS was not a different concept but directly relevant to the question. I carefully considered the decision on the Golden Mile complaint and concluded this was not at all similar.

The complainant said we could have chosen a country that hadn’t banned them. Now the UK decision on the back of the Cass review was major world news. It probably will lead to other countries changing their policies. To suggest it is not relevant just seems crazy to me. 

One reason I was so surprised by the latest decision is that RANZ declined to uphold a complaint against a poll which said:

There is a proposal to sell off the Auckland Port operating business which is currently 100% owned by Auckland Council and Aucklanders, via a lease. How strongly do you support or oppose the sale of the port operations?”

Now this question is simply factually wrong. There is no sale. It is a lease. A sale transfers ownership. A lease does not. The question is obviously written to get more people to be opposed. Yet RANZ said it was absolutely fine. This is why I think there is a double standard. It might not be deliberate, but it is there.

Now I don’t think the company that did that poll should be sanctioned for it either. It isn’t totally egregious, and as I say I don’t think RANZ should be second guessing question design. But after having read that they said that was okay, I was pretty surprised to have them apparently rule the totally factually correct question on puberty blockers was unacceptable.

I could provide many more examples of what I see as inconsistent decisions, but my aim isn’t to get into tit for that. I wasn’t party to their discussions and I am sure that from their backgrounds they genuinely think there was a difference. Different people have different worldviews.

I have detailed these cases so I can’t be accused of hiding what the complaints have been, but also to stress than when a complaint has been upheld I take it very very seriously.

RANZ

I have no ill will towards RANZ. I have many friends in RANZ and there’s not a single person there I dislike (even if the same may not be true in reverse). The Officers have been very supportive iof me, and the PSG Complaints Officer has always been professional, despite the obvious divergence in views. 

I wish them well, but I do have some genuine advice for their complaints procedure going forward, because it has been weaponised and there are many other companies that could be targeted. They may not have owners with the same stress levels as me, but I’d rather they don’t have to go through it.

1. Make it easier to dispose of vexatious complaints
2. Consider a limit for the maximum number of complaints you will accept from one person
3. Change the process so that the PSG can meet with the member and discuss the issues, rather than merely deciding based on one written response. It was extremely frustrating to not be able to discuss the issues, the intentions, the interactions in detail with back and forth.
4. I really think it is very dangerous to have RANZ/PSG become the arbiter of what is a good question, unless the question is so horribly biased. This is a subjective area and it has a chilling effect. You have to write hundreds of questions every few months, with the worry that because three or four people don’t like it, you can then suffer severe consequences. The consequences of bad questions should primarily be public scrutiny, and less impact on decision makers.
5. If you are going to remain the arbiter of what is an acceptable question, then consider far more detailed guidance. You could do case studies at the AGM. You could even have an advisory service where a panel of fellows could provide feedback. 
6. The threshold for suspension or expulsion should be clearly defined and reserved for conduct that is along the lines of other professions, ie accountants who steal, lawyers who shoplift, doctors who kill, engineers whose buildings collapse. Disputes over question wording should not be at that level. 

I will remain a supporter (not a member) of RANZ and the work they do for the industry. I will also strive to uphold best practice of their codes and the global industry codes.

Future Accountability

One benefit of RANZ membership was the code of practice and complaints procedure, that helped as quality assurance.  So what will Curia do, without being a member of RANZ?

I plan to have a three stage process. They are:

1. Discussion. If you have a question or concern about a poll, then talk to me. I’m happy to meet in person. I often take questions about methodology at the many conferences I speak to. I am speaking on radio next week about the challenge of polling Pacific communities. I am always looking for how to improve also.
2. Complain to Curia. If you are unhappy with any discussion, then there will be the ability to send in a complaint about a Curia poll through our website. This models what the Press Council and BSA do, where you have to complain to the member first. If your complaint is not vexatious, I will respond on our website. I will allow you to respond and vice-versa up to a maximum three rounds. I may agree that some things could have been done better, or I may defend why I did it the way I did. People will be able to see the exchange on the same site as the results. I could even link the exchange to the results. This may also build up a useful FAQ over time, on issues such as why don’t you publish a response rate.
3. Finally I am looking at a peer review ability. If you are really unhappy with Curia’s response, then I will ask an expert in polling (which is a specialised subset of market research) to do a peer review where they can critique the poll, and I will publish all peer reviews favourable and unfavourable. Now this will have a cost as the peer reviewer will be paid. As I will be saving around $1,000 a year in RANZ membership I will use that to pay for half the cost of any peer reviews, and the complainant the other half. This also means the peer reviewer is not paid solely by me, making them more independent. It will also mean that people will only go to this level if they really feel strongly I have it wrong.

This isn’t the same as the RANZ procedure, but I do think it will demonstrate my commitment to best practice and transparency. In one way it will be more transparent as all complaints will be published, not just those upheld.

I do a bit of work in other countries, and may also look at whether I can join an overseas industry group, and be subject to their code of practice and complaints procedure. Also if RANZ changes their complaints procedure, then I would even look at rejoining, if they thought it was desirable (which they probably won’t as I imagine I cost them a huge amount of time and money dealing with all this).

I hope this post fully explains my decision.

The Herald reports:

Rotorua’s Mayor Tania Tapsell has been criticised for the way she “shut down” the country’s longest-serving councillor as he tried to ask a question.

The exchange between the pair followed two councillors’ notices of motion being declined at last week’s Rotorua Lakes Council meeting.

One was councillor Lani Kereopa’s request to vote on calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, like other councils had.

Intended notices of motion are assessed by staff and the final say on whether they are heard is down to the chair of the meeting – in this case the mayor.

Ratepayers should be grateful to the Mayor for not having Councillors waste their time on meaningless gesture s that fall outside the Council’s remit. The views of Rotorua Councillors on foreign policy is not needed or wanted. They should follow the Mayor and focus on rates and infrastructure.

The Herald reports:

The eatery made $819.07 sales through Uber Eats over three days between July 26 and July 28, but after deduction of $225.31 in fees, $407.07 in ad spend, GST of $33.83 and a charge of $68 for “savings on items”, the business was paid just $84.11.

You’re not forced to use Uber Eats, and even if you decide you want to, it is your decision whether to spend some of your revenue on advertising.

The NY Times reports:

Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader of Hamas, was assassinated on Wednesday by an explosive device covertly smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying, according to seven Middle Eastern officials, including two Iranians, and an American official.

The bomb had been hidden approximately two months ago in the guesthouse, according to five of the Middle Eastern officials. The guesthouse is run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and is part of a large compound, known as Neshat, in an upscale neighborhood of northern Tehran.

Mr. Haniyeh was in Iran’s capital for the presidential inauguration. 

An impressive intelligence operation to be able to not just infiltrate a hostile country, but get inside a secure compound and leave a bomb there for two months.

The timing is interesting as it was around two months ago the Iranian President died in a helicopter crash. Now a great conspiracy theory would Mossad killed the Iranian President, so that the Hamas leader would come to Iran for the new President inauguration!

More likely is then when the President died, Mossad realised the election and inauguration of a new President would be an opportunity to target the terrorist leader, and immediately set to work to get the bomb in place.