Robinsod: Oh right, of course. I had assumed he wouldn’t bother with poetry, which thinking back on it was a stupid assumption given that I’m very familiar with online trollery. Guess I had assumed the kiwi section of the internet wouldn’t be as bad. Le sigh.

Dad, take your righteous anger and go write a post about the family courts. Don’t make me copy and paste feminist theory here, you won’t like it

It’s pretty standard for polling companies to do polls which includes questions for more than one client (which reduces the cost for the clients), and it would surprise me if Curia is any different.

Either way, not cool.

I certainly dislike the idea of parties directly funding issues-based groups, but at the same time, a lot of charities are essentially issues-based groups too, and I wouldn’t want to see parties barred from donating to say, Greenpeace or Amnesty International. I think publicising that sort of thing is the best bet, as I really don’t see how it breaks the law. (of course, I’m not a lawyer, and I haven’t exhaustively studied the EFA, so it might well break the law)

I, for one would be interested to hear what push-polling Family First is involved with this year.

Captcha: “Phoned only” Pffft. Yeah Right!

Family Fist are entitled to not register if their campaign doesn’t do any electioneering, even if it effects election results. Issues-based speech, even if it has a disgusting goal like loosening protections for children who are abused, is rightly protected by the EFA, because issues-based speech is exactly what the right to freedom of speech is supposed to protect.

So long as Family First don’t try to covertly say “vote National, because their support for repealing s59 was ironic!”, then they have every right to remain unregistered, regardless of how strategically detrimental to Labour and the Greens this is. If we can’t convince people we’re right on this by arguing the issues and allowing our opponents to argue back, even in the face of spin like this, then the parties we support don’t deserve to be in parliament.

We can and should criticise the spin. We shouldn’t criticise the fact that they’re benefitting National’s campaign while being unregistered.

The irony is that Farrar is attacking the EFA and open and trasparent groups such as the EPMU while quite possibly playing a central role in a scheme to circumvent it that involves a rightwing group that has not registered and does not declare its funding or its spend.

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2008/05/new_odt_website.html

Scribe – I’m not directly criticising Farrar’s methodology (though some of his qualitative judgements have seemed quirky to me in the past). I’m just aiming to help our readers ‘join the dots’ – and what a lot of dots there are…

You retard. The issue is that the bill is branded as labour’s and any anti-labour sentiment means votes for Key. As we’ve seen from threads here nobody is planing to vote for National so much as they will vote against Labour. Therefore “anti-smacking” hysteria is a pay off for National. Oh and it means National gets to keep its hands clean.

Doesn’t mike williams own a polling company?

Insider – not that I know of. If he does I don’t imagine it’s run using Labour party office phones. I would say Farrar is doing go-between work for the party. It’s a natural progression from the networking and messaging hub kiwiblog has provided for rwnj.

Surely then the issue is not the relationships and your vivid imagnination of the machinations going on behind the scenes, but the questions and methodology.

Do you have any informed comment on them? Shouldn’t you before making a post?

Otherwise isn’t this post just dog whistling?

I’ve heard conspiracy theories in my time, but this is a dandy. Collusion? Please.

And National isn’t trying to get the smacking bill repealed or referended (not a real word), so how is it running a parallel campaign with Family First?

a_y_b,

So does Curia have a list of right-wing nutjobs that they call for their polls? Or might the polls it conducts be spot on?