Latest News from Kiwiblog
Kiwiblog
3 hours ago
- General
- Kiwiblog
KB Honours 2025
The full list is here. Titular honours are: To be Dames Companion of the said Order: Ms Ranjna Patel, ONZM, QSM, JP, of Auckland. For services to ethnic communities, health and family violence prevention. Emeritus Distinguished Professor Alison Stewart, CNZM, of Prebbleton. For services to plant science and the arable sector. Mrs Catriona Ruth Williams, MNZM, of Masterton. For services to spinal cord injury research and equestrian sport. To be Knights Companion of the said Order: The Honourable Mark Leslie Smith Cooper, KC, of Martinborough. For services to the judiciary. Mr Brendan Jon Lindsay, MNZM, of Auckland. For services to business and philanthropy. Mr Ewan Francis Smith, CNZM, of Rarotonga, Cook Islands. For services to Cook Islands business and tourism.
Kiwiblog
3 hours ago
- Kiwiblog
General Debate 03 June 2025
June 3, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel The current group of activists who deny their antecedents in order to profit should be seen for what they are… Scam artists
Kiwiblog
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Kiwiblog
Ukraine strikes back
The Ukrainian military have managed to take out 40 nuclear-capable long-range Russian bombers, representing a third of the Russian air missile carrier fleet. The cost of the damaged or destroyed planes is estimated to be between US$2 and US$7 billion. They were taken out by 117 drones that cost around $4,000 each, but not launched from Ukrainian territory. It was a cunning plan, that was 18 months in the planning. The drones were smuggled into Russia in trucks and then placed into mobile wooden kit houses. The trucks went around 4,.000 kms into Russia and then the roofs of the kit houses were remotely retracted, and the drones took off and targeted planes at five different airports. Slava Ukraini! UPDATE: Further details are that the truck drivers were not Ukranians but just Russians who had been hired, with no idea what was hidden in the roof of the truck. Can you imagine their surprise when you're driving along, and suddenly a few dozen drones blast off from your truck!
Kiwiblog
a day ago
- Politics
- Kiwiblog
How did the Australian pollsters go?
Now we have a final result for the Australian election, we can look at how the Australian pollsters did. This shows the primary and then TPP vote for each pollsters's final pre-election poll. The final TPP result of 55.2% to 44.8% was greater than all the polls. Four had it 53 to 47, so were out by 2.2% only. Those most out on the TPP were Ipsos followed by Freshwater and Demos. In terms of the primary vote, YouGov were closest to the Coalition at 31.4% to 31.8%. The most out went to Freshwater who had them 5.2% too high, and then Resolve at 3.2%. For the ALP, Redbridge were only 0.6% out and Ipsos had them a massive 6.6% too low. Four pollsters got the Greens almost spot on. The furthest out was YouGov at 2.4%. And One Nation had Roy Morgan get them almost spot on, while Essential had them 3.6% too low. If we look at how many results were within the margin of error for their sample size we have: Roy Morgan 6/6 Newspoll, Redbridge 5/6 Spectre, Resolve 3/6 Ipsos, Freshwater, Demos, Essential 2/6 YouGov 1/6 And the average error for each pollster was: Redbridge 1.5% Roy Morgan 1.7% Newspoll 1.9% Demos 2.3% resolve 2.3% YouGov 2.4% Spectre 2.6% Essential 2.6% Freshwater 2.7% Ipsos 3.0% As always you should never judge a pollster off just one poll. And all pollsters did get it right that Labor would win – but they all underestimated the degree.
Kiwiblog
a day ago
- Politics
- Kiwiblog
Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour
David Seymour said: Not only is our mission fundamentally hard, but sometimes we've made it harder than necessary. I hesitate to bring it up, but we've burned ourselves on one or two of our own brushfires along the way. Our perk buster took a perk. Our tough on crime guy got convicted. Our leadership had a civil war. We were subject to an unconventional coup. In 2012 I wrote an obituary for the ACT Party. I said: Trauma surgeons at Wellington Political Hospital announced today that the ACT Party was judged clinically dead after succumbing to a grievous assault from Kim Dotcom. Surgeons battled all night to save the political party, but the accumulated trauma from years of abuse meant that the patient was already in critical condition when Dotcom fell on it, crushing the remaining life out of the teenage political party. I traversed their many challenges: Stepdad Richard Prebble moved out, and Father Roger disapproved of Rodney, the new stepdad. They started to argue in front of the kids. Even worse, suave Don stole away ACT's first girlfriend, so at age 12 ACT got reduced to two MPs in 2005. Rodney and Heather just wouldn't stop throwing things at each other. ACT didn't even know who started the fights, but it normally ended up in the middle with the bruises to show from the domestic abuse. CYFS were called in, but the fighting and abuse continued. A worse bruise came when Rodney and his girlfriend were playing with their model plane and it ended up scarring and concussing ACT. ACT's friends say that ACT's good looks never fully recovered from that. But worse was to come when David stole someone's wallet and ID as a joke. It was no joke, when it turned out that David had done this before, and ACT knew about it and never told anyone. ACT got beaten up by all its mates at school for not telling them about this earlier. Even at this stage, ACT had some hope of a normal life ahead. But then Don turned up again and told ACT that he was going to take over or he would beat ACT up so badly it would die. So ACT was forced to become friends with Don and Don then got ACT stoned on cannabis. Some kids can handle cannabis, but not ACT. It fell off a cliff breaking its arms and legs. I concluded: ACT's friends are very sad at this prognosis. They recall the good times they had with ACT. They remember the good things ACT achieved. They don't want to see ACT dead and buried, but they know that true friends don't let mates suffer in agony. They know it is time to turn off the life support, and let ACT die. ACT had got 1.1% at the 2011 election and only hing on with John Banks winning Epsom. They generally polled around 0.5% for the next three years and got 0.7% in 2014, again just winning Epsom with David Seymour as the sole MP. 2017 saw an even worse result with just 0.5%. The thought that in eight years time Seymour would be Deputy Prime Minister would have got you locked up in Carrington. And in 2018, ACT continued to poll under 1%. But in 2019 their support ticked up to 2% and just before Covid struck they even made 3.5%. Covid-19 saw their support drop back to 1.8% but then it climbed and by June they had hit 5%, then 6%, then 7% and got 7.6%. An amazing performance, and not a flash in the pan due to an election debate worm. Then despite all those new MPs, the much larger caucus kept it together and as National has internal issues, ACT hit 18.5% in late 2021. They dropped back as National recovered but still went on to get an increased vote of 8.6% in 2023, and the coalition agreement that saw David Seymour become Deputy Prime Minister on Sunday. I am very glad I was wrong in 2012, and it is a tribute to ACT and Seymour that they have gone from a 0.5% party to a major force in NZ politics.
