California lifts gay marriage ban

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, May 17th, 2008 - 41 comments
Categories: International, john key - Tags: , , ,

California’s top court has ruled that a state law banning marriage between same-sex couples is unconstitutional, accrording to a BBC report.

The state’s Supreme Court said the “right to form a family relationship” applied to all Californians regardless of sexuality.

I wonder if this ruling will re-ignite debate on the status of relationships here in NZ? As a contender for the top job it would be good to get a definitive answer out of Mr Key, who in the past has presented two different views on local Civil Union laws:

To the Gay community he said that he had no problem with civil unions.

Key: (to GayNZ):“Personally I have no problems with Civil Unions”

Yet he voted against the Civil Union Bill.

Key (to right-wing Christian-style magazine Investigate on why he voted against the bill): “I thought it was a gay marriage bill, and I thought the government should have just been honest enough to say that.”

So does that mean he’d support gay marriage if it was up front?

It’s hard to see many of our politicians re-engage with this topic – but i have no doubt the question will return eventually.

41 comments on “California lifts gay marriage ban ”

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  1. Inventory2 1
    17 May 2008 at 8:33 am

    Fellas, when will you learn? It’s not about John Key all the time! But keep it up, and that 27 point gap between National and Labour will grow, and grow, and grow…..

    It is quite possible to support civil unions and oppose gay marriage.

  2. RedLogix 2
    17 May 2008 at 8:56 am

    These polls are rigged.

    My younger daughter has been working for Herald Digipoll the last few months, and she was talking with me last night about how they are a total scam:

    1. The target the demographic they want to by carefully selecting the suburb and time of day. This is done very explicitly.

    2. They are perfectly aware that much of the left wing demographic does not have landlines, but they refuse to poll cellphone users.

    3. Only a small fraction of those conctacted actually answer the questions; this makes these polls almost as hopelessly self-selecting as on-line polls.

    4. The questions are always carefully phrased and couched in language that will get the answers that are being paid for. It is this aspect that most appalls my daughter and I got the impression she’s sick of it and is looking for another job as soon as she can.

  3. Dancer 3
    17 May 2008 at 9:04 am

    i agree that it’s not all about john key – but if the polls hold true through to the election then he’ll have a majority with no need to do the deals with other parties – and no need to do deals to get policy through. so i think it’s fair enough to have some scrutiny of the man who wants to be pm – we don’t know that much about him – nor what he thinks about many of those side issues that become the topic of the day when you’re sitting at the big desk.

  4. AncientGeek 4
    17 May 2008 at 9:12 am

    I2: there are so many things wrong with your statements. But I’m nursing a mild level of dehydration.

    So I’ll confine myself to saying that I’m interested in John Keys ability to be so much in opposition to himself. He doesn’t appear to have much depth – probably just a nice guy. Likes to say whatever people want to hear. That really doesn’t sound like someone worth having running the country.

    The track record of nice populist politicians is abysmal in this country and everywhere else. It isn’t nice having politicians with the intellectual opinion backbone of wet spaghetti.

    But back on topic again. Civil union or gay marriage is a “Chicken Little” issue. The debate here was full of squawking about the doom that would happen if it was passed and put into law.

    It is probably too early to see the full effects. But at this point it looks to me that it hasn’t made a blind bit of difference. Which is what I expected to happen. It is in the same class of “Chicken Little” as doing things like giving women the vote – which was also going to destroy society in the 1890’s.

    It always amazes me with conservatives that they have absolutely no sense of history, because they routinely keep doing the same stupid chicken little act over and over again. It’d be funny if you didn’t consider the people it affects.

  5. Billy 5
    17 May 2008 at 9:28 am

    I tend to agree AG. It’s hard to believe everyone got so worked up. Or that this was so vital, when you consider that so far 16 gay men, 8 lesbians and a pair of Mt Eden social workers have had civil unions.

  6. AncientGeek 6
    17 May 2008 at 10:00 am

    Billy: In your inimitable style of humour, I’m pretty sure you’ve understated it. While I haven’t seen it used for gays, I’ve been to a few civil unions for non-gays. They haven’t been social workers either.

    But full marks for effort – tell me have you tried the comedy club yet? You’re giving away good lines.

  7. Lew 7
    17 May 2008 at 10:13 am

    RedLogix: Anyone who knows anything knows that these polls are indicative only. There’s only one which matters, and it’s conducted on a Saturday in Spring once every three years.

    L

  8. Lew 8
    17 May 2008 at 10:21 am

    My instinct is that, if he wins this year, John Key will once in government find himself unable to be all things to all people all the time. At that point inconsistency won’t fly any longer, so in order to remain he’ll need to become consistent. Then the electorate will see what he’s really about and can make a decision on that basis. If it’s something approaching the `compassionate conservative’ that he’s publicised himself as, then there will probably not be any significant backlash, but if it’s too far from this line, he’s bound to piss of some chunk of the electorate.

    Politics by focus group is a tricky business, but it’s not inherently impossible.

    L

  9. barnsleybill 9
    17 May 2008 at 10:42 am

    Nice conspiracy play redlogix. Shame it was not a herald digipoll poll.
    Irrespective of the numbers and the usual suspects calling each and every poll a red herring or a statistical blip or an anomaly…
    Look at the trend boys. It is all bad for harry and her team. Cullen may well be moving decimal places on his budget announcement as we speak!

  10. Billy 10
    17 May 2008 at 10:47 am

    It’s funny, isn’t it BB. Every post about a poll is met with certain people claiming that this is (yet another) rogue poll. They just cannot imagine why anyone would not be perfectly happy with this government, because they expect everyone thinks like they do.

  11. Billy 11
    17 May 2008 at 10:52 am

    AG: yes, I was exaggerating for comic effect. But not too much, it appears:

    marriages civil-unions and divorces yr ended dec07

    It seems there were about 63 non-gay civil unions last year. So, if you’ve been to “a few” you’re doing well.

    [lprent: corrected link so it didn’t spread all over the page on firefox]

  12. AncientGeek 12
    17 May 2008 at 11:06 am

    Can’t remember going to any last year. In fact last year I can only remember going to one marriage – church and all that.

    But just after the civil union came out, I went to a few – but that was a few years back. To tell the truth it is bloody hard to see the difference unless you get told proudly by the participants.

    Umm those graphs are interesting, I thought that there were some dramatic shifts until I looked closer at the scale. But it does look like there is a steady decline in marriages at present. Hardly surprising when you look at the divorce rate.

    It is a pity that they don’t show the dissolution rate for civil unions. That is a trend that would be interesting to watch.

  13. Inventory2 13
    17 May 2008 at 11:10 am

    Ancient Geek said “I2: there are so many things wrong with your statements. But I’m nursing a mild level of dehydration.”

    AG – having suffered from post consumption dehydration a few times myself, you have my sympathy.

    However, I take issue with your comments. I have no problem with relationships of all kinds being given legal status as per the Civil Unions Act. However, I would have opposed any attempt to legalise gay marriage. It’s not homophobia on my part – my brother came out in the early 1970’s (I’m almost as ancient a geek as your name suggests!) long before being gay was fashionable, is incredibly successful in his field, I love him dearly and am immensely proud of him. I have a number of gay friends, male and female, who are always warmly welcomed into our home.

    However, as a Christian ( a middle-of-the road, conservative Christian, rather than a Bible-bashing, tongue-speaking fundamentalist) I believe that MARRIAGE is the preserve of a man and a woman. As I said earlier, I have no problem with legislation that provides legal recognition of and protection for other relationships, for both same-sex couples, and heterosexual couples who do not wish to marry. I would far rather see stable relationships where a formal commitment has been made, especially when children are involved.

    I believe there was a level of deceit when the Civil Unions legislation was before the House. Even though the legislation was in the name of David Benson-Pope, it was well known that Tim Barnett was the driving force. Had Barnett put this legislation forward as a means by which same-sex couples could achieve legal recognition of their relationships, it may have enjoyed wider support than was achieved.

  14. AncientGeek 14
    17 May 2008 at 11:12 am

    Billy: I distrust all polls, good or bad. I have done so for a few decades. As redlogix says, they aren’t much more accurate than online polls.

    Their methodology is so suspect at many different levels. You can start with the sample sizes, the selection criteria, and just work outwards.

    I view them as just being a marketing con-job for the ill-informed suckers in society and to produce media headlines.

    On a related subject. There is also that other marketing con – the TV rating system. What is it? 400 boxes on TV’s around the country? They stay at the same places until people die. Explains the high ratings for coro street.

  15. Lew 15
    17 May 2008 at 11:24 am

    Right argument, wrong example, AncientGeek. Yes, like polls, TV ratings are mostly meaningless in isolation, but as BB says it’s the trends which matter. And Coro street is and always has been a genuine hit.

    L

  16. AncientGeek 16
    17 May 2008 at 11:31 am

    I2: I really don’t care one way or the other about marriages vs civil unions.

    So long as they have the same effect under the law, and provides the same level of legal protection for children – then they are the same as far as I’m concerned.

    Normally, what value people choose to put in a name is their issue as far as I’m concerned. That is up until the time that they start trying to use their beliefs to restrict the legal protections and rights available to other people. Then I start getting annoyed.

    In the end, after all that fuss and chicken little rhetoric, the protections and rights offered by the civil union bill appear to be adequete. In a lot of ways, it seems like a more rational law than the marriage act.

    I’d add that I’m agnostic on most things, religion, sexual preferences, a lot of politics, types of cars, etc. The criteria I usually use is the level of harm to third or innocent parties. For instance if someone tries preaching Christianity to me, then I tend to shove the more interesting parts of the old testament into their beliefs. Then I start on the track record of christians over the last 2000 years. Thats on the general principle of “if you bug me, then I’m really going to bug you”.

  17. AncientGeek 17
    17 May 2008 at 11:36 am

    L: I’d agree that it is a hit. I’ve had to suffer through people insisting that it be played with loaud volumes because they’re deafer than I am. It makes a *strong* impact on my ears.

    I just don’t think that it is as big a hit as the TV ratings indicate. In fact the TV ratings are good for one thing. Usually if they’re high, it is good indicator of something to avoid.

    What I object to is that they seem to be used to justify making sure that there is seldom any TV worth watching.

  18. Inventory2 18
    17 May 2008 at 12:45 pm

    AG – surprisingly, I agree with you on much of what you have written, in particular the legal protection afforded children. I worked with a gay woman who had a child with her partner – when the relationship went sour, things got pretty messy for a while. Had this couple had a legally-recognised and protected relationship, things may have been different.

    As far as the Christianity thing goes, I respect your views. I have heard it said that “the biggest cause of atheism is Christians” and often find myself agreeing. I prefer St Francis of Assize’s words – “preach the gospel at all times; when that fails, use words.”

  19. Travellerev 19
    17 May 2008 at 1:32 pm

    Isn’t it funny RedLogic how the ignoramuses that comment on this site refuse to accept information that could enlighten them a bit. And how everything instantly becomes a “conspiracy theory”.

    You tell of a conversation with your daughter who tells you how these polls are conducted and Bam you’re a conspiracy theorist.

    We don’t have a free and independent press any more since all but one newspaper are owned by Fairfax which is 10% owned by Murdoch.
    We don’t get the real news any more, and Fairfax very much want John Key in and Helen out.

    Wake up sheeple.

  20. Brett Dale 20
    17 May 2008 at 1:38 pm

    A gay couple should be allowed to have a civil Union if they want, they should have the same rights as straight couples. They should be allowed to get married also.

    I would also hope that Churches of all religions should allow gay marriages.

    But it should be up to each Church to decide if they want to allow Gay Marriage, the Government shouldnt tell them that they have to.

    [Brett, such ignorance. This isn’t about marriage as a ceremony performed by churches, which churches are free to set their own rules around. It’s about marriage the legal institution from which flows various legal rights and social status. SP]

  21. Brett Dale 21
    17 May 2008 at 2:36 pm

    Yes I agree 100% that Gay people should have the same rights and social status thru the legal institution of marriage.

    I know what a civil Union is, and Im for it.

    In terms of the wider debate of Marriage as a ceremony performed by a church, then the Government should butt out.

    Just trying to widen this debate.

  22. AncientGeek 22
    17 May 2008 at 2:41 pm

    I prefer St Francis of Assize’s words – “preach the gospel at all times; when that fails, use words.’

    That was pretty much what I told my brother when he became religious. I’d done a lot of reading on religions when I was younger and puzzled to find out that I appeared to have no capability to take anything on faith.

    It was funny how fast he took to getting religious instruction after he talked to me a few times. He swore off the old testament pretty rapidly – so many authors and so contradictory. For some reason he didn’t like the suggestions I made (and pointed to the appropriate verses) after he said that he was going to live his life by the bible.

    I have the greatest respect for people who manage to live their lives following their faith. But as you might have gathered I have little respect for people pushing anything. I prefer to see how they act rather than what they say.

  23. AncientGeek 23
    17 May 2008 at 2:48 pm

    BD: Most marriages aren’t performed by a church. In the marriages I’ve been to recently, most have been performed by people other than those ordained in a church.

    It’d be interesting to see some stats on that if anyone knows of any.

    A marriage is defined by what act of parliament that the union takes place under. Everything else is in the heads of the participants and how they perceive it.

  24. Lew 24
    17 May 2008 at 3:32 pm

    Travellerev: “We don’t have a free and independent press any more since all but one newspaper are owned by Fairfax which is 10% owned by Murdoch.”

    It’s statements like this which cause people to label you a conspiracy theorist nut. It’s just plain fucking bullshit and shows that you a) don’t know anything about what you’re talking about; b) don’t care to do even the most trivial bit of research before spouting off and c) aren’t prepared to consider alternatives because you already have your mind made up.

    The first google hit on the words nz media ownership is http://canterbury.cyberplace.org.nz/community/CAFCA/publications/Miscellaneous/mediaown.pdf Even CAFCA disagrees with you on this one.

    L

  25. Travellerev 25
    17 May 2008 at 4:50 pm

    Thank you very much for this pdf. Lew, I’ll read it and get back to you.
    First impression is: it seems that Murdoch’s influence has even been bigger than I previously thought.
    You should read these things before you put them up, Lew.

    See this is what I mean, all that anger:
    It’s just plain fucking bullshit and shows that you a) don’t know anything about what you’re talking about; b) don’t care to do even the most trivial bit of research before spouting off and c) aren’t prepared to consider alternatives because you already have your mind made up.

    Oh, I thought this might interest you.
    http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=57801
    http://www.pol.mq.edu.au/Bridget%20Griffin%20Foley/Dynasties.pdf
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jul/23/newscorporation.rupertmurdoch
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200610/s1769788.htm
    http://www.greenleft.org.au/1992/51/3492

    Sucker

  26. RedLogix 26
    17 May 2008 at 4:53 pm

    Well actually Travellerev may have simplified, but she’s not too far off the mark:

    1. The very interesting CAFCA document you cited (thanks for the link) summarises Print Ownership in an Appendix. (p59) For Daily Press with a circulation over 25,000 there are only three owners ANM, Fairfax and Allied. Allied (the ODT) is the exception, being NZ owned. ANM runs just two papers, the Herald (195,000) and Hawkes Bay Today (27,000). FairFax have five papers (The Dom being the largest) with a readership totalling almost 300,000, ie about 55% of the total daily readership. If you add in ANM, then about 92% of the daily press readership is with papers owned by just TWO companies.

    2. According to these dated links Murdoch owns at least 7.5% of Fairfax.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200610/s1769294.htm

  27. Travellerev 27
    17 May 2008 at 4:59 pm

    Oh Lew,

    I’m so going to whip your ass with this Pdf.
    Thank you so much for sharing it with me.
    lol

  28. Lew 28
    17 May 2008 at 5:40 pm

    Travellerev: Not sure how you can whip my arse with this, since my only assertion on the matter of media ownership has been that the statement quoted above is false. I won’t be at all unhappy if you can disprove my a, b and c assertions above with an educated, well-researched and open-minded bit of work- I have no quarrel with you personally, I just don’t like sloppiness.

    RedLogix: Yes, I do have some concerns about the ownership structure of NZ’s media ecology, but in spite of these, by most metrics it’s actually fairly robust. Reporters without Borders and another agency (I forget who) routinely lists our media as among the best.

    And yeah; it is a useful document. Since it’s CAFCA it needs to be taken with some scepticism, but it’s based on quite firm (and most importantly transparent) data.

    L

  29. RedLogix 29
    17 May 2008 at 6:25 pm

    Yes, I do have some concerns about the ownership structure of NZ’s media ecology, but in spite of these, by most metrics it’s actually fairly robust.

    Frankly I think that is grossly understating it. We’ve just gotten accustomed to the biased pap we are being fed. Print journalism in NZ is in trouble.

    There are only two major employers, both known to be highly aligned with the rightwing point of view. Both of them are overseas owned by mega-corporates that really only care about revenue. Pay rates are appallingly low for such a vital and skilled profession and the main prospect for advancement seems to be either into the wilderness of freelancing or going over to the PR darkside.

    Compare this with the situation prior to the 90’s, we had dozens of genuinely independently owned publications, with robustly expressed diversity of editorial positions, committed to actually enquiring into issues and holding authority to account. In the major cities readers often had a choice of dailies, and just as importantly, journos had a choice of employers. If life didn’t suit under one, there was always the chance of a better fit with another paper.

    But with only TWO employers, both committed to representing conservative, business interests, traditional journalism as a profession is dying on it’s feet.

    Whether the internet will a evolve new and credible platform for the profession remains to be seen.

  30. Lew 30
    17 May 2008 at 7:22 pm

    RedLogix: I agree entirely about the parlous way media people are treated; it was a major reason in my choosing media analysis over journalism as a career. This is significantly the result of ownership concentration. But by this metric journalism everywhere is in trouble. If that’s so then eventually alternatives will emerge and if they genuinely fill a need people will flock to them and the existing media will need to adapt or perish. If you think there’s a credible way to improve things to that end I’m all ears; I’d love to be on the next major media wave.

    It’s not that I’m `used to the pap we are being fed’ (I’m often frustrated by the poor standard of journalism), I’m just not under any delusions that it’s much better elsewhere, of that we were once in some sort of golden age. It’s just not so. The business model has at a fundamental level always been the same, driven by the same imperatives and yielding much the same outcomes. One fundamental difference is that there is simply a hell of a lot more news now than there was, and that news is much easier to create, transmit, cover, store and distribute, but deadlines and other factors have not changed commensurately. This makes the job a damned sight harder than it was and changes the balance between what you might call `pap’ and what you might call `robust’. Believe it or not, the `pap’ is of news value to a bunch of people, and them who pay the piper call the tune.

    One more thing: I think what you represent as the `rightwing point of view’ is seen by many as `enquiring into issues and holding authority to account’, and while it might not be your view you need to realise that it is a legitimate view; we do currently have a Labour government in power and the media holding them to account is always going to look unfair to leftist partisans. I’ve said before and I’ll restate it here that I don’t think there’s a credible case to be made that the media systemically favour either side; the revenue-driven business model which you deride simply doesn’t allow it, at least not in NZ’s tiny little media ecology. Pockets of the media certainly focus on particular demographics (in fact I’ve spent some time researching this very phenomenon) but that’s on the periphery; what I’m talking about is the Big 4, One News, 3 News and Radio NZ National.

    L

  31. Lew 31
    17 May 2008 at 7:23 pm

    Having reread this exchange, I think we’ve hijacked the thread. Sorry.

    L

  32. lprent 32
    17 May 2008 at 7:41 pm

    Thats ok. We kind of expect that sort of stuff to happen. You really only find people and moderators getting upset if it degenerates into schoolyard taunting.

    The kind of stuff that has been going on in here doesn’t fall into that category. In fact I’d say it is exactly what you’d expect towards the tail of a post.

  33. RedLogix 33
    17 May 2008 at 7:48 pm

    it was a major reason in my choosing media analysis over journalism as a career.

    oops… I’m arguing with an expert.

    we do currently have a Labour government in power and the media holding them to account is always going to look unfair to leftist partisans.

    What I object to is that New Zealand is actually going along very well all things considered. In fact we have never been better off. But you wouldn’t know that if you read the Herald or Dom.

  34. Lew 34
    17 May 2008 at 8:26 pm

    RedLogix: I don’t see this as a problem, but simply the nature of the beast. The commercial media business model is this: in exchange for your eyeballs and earholes looking at or listening to advertisements, the outlet keeps an eye on the happenings of the world for you, because you’re too busy to go and do all the background research and interviews and so on that journalists and such people do. This means hard-news media outlets are in principle weighted towards `need to know’ stuff – things which can or will impact materially on people in the immediate to mid-term; and because what people need to know is strongly oriented toward avoiding adversity or danger, news media tend to accentuate the negative and eliminate the positive.

    Naive news readers tend to buy the Chicken Licken line, but anyone with any institutional memory can see that doom and gloom are never far from the headlines. One of Poneke’s last posts was on this very subject.

    L

  35. lprent 35
    17 May 2008 at 8:32 pm

    Lew: I just finished reading the latter part of this thread.

    The basic problem is that the underlying demographics have changed so much. 20 years ago I was vastly over-educated compared to the average run of the population. Now I’m seeing kids routinely getting that level of education.

    There hasn’t been the type of media that I could read in NZ ever. The nearest was probably the NBR or Independent in the 80’s and 90’s. The radionz national program has been my mainstay.

    Offshore it was a lot simplier. I could read the economist, new scientist, and a number of other publications.

    These days, the net is making a hell of a difference. You see it here all of the time. People link in pieces from everywhere. Both in the posts and the comments.

    The downside of it is that it will probably cause the media to focus more on the pap level. Because these net media are highly interactive. If you don’t have much to say, then the net based media becomes pretty boring very fast.

    The problem for the media, is that there isn’t any good revenue stream model developed yet for net content. It takes peanuts and some skill to run this type of site at a technical level. The posters do the content because they want to. They have skill levels that are probably way in excess of what is required, and a hyper-critical public of comments that encourage self improvement very rapidly. Look at how fast our posters lifted their writing and research style.

    How can you maintain a organization with its overheads against that kind of opposition.

  36. Lew 36
    17 May 2008 at 8:48 pm

    lprent: And here I thought you were just the tech guy.

    Your point about the ease of running this show makes good sense to me. I’ve been involved in administering a few sites; the biggest of which I co-founded and now has more than 20,000 members.People turn themselves from rank newbies to genuine tradespeople, whether technical, social, or what, just because they want to be involved.

    There’s another aspect, though: a media ecology is like a jigsaw puzzle. Nobody is meant to get all their news from the one source, and the trick has not so much been in concentrating on getting one particular demographic, but in strategic diversification, which is a targetted form of horizontal integration. This rests on the links between publications; stabled journalists often write for several of a company’s publications to draw readers across; the same things occur on TV where John Campbell guests in Bro’Town to raise his profile.

    The internets are *designed* to work this way, and thus they have a natural advantage – and the revenue stream is the same: advertising. But the internet advertising market is still too weak, because for one thing it’s an untrusted medium with only moderate penetration; and secondly because that marginal medium is moving into an already-crowded market. It seems guaranteed that this will strengthen, and as it does an ad campaign on the Standard might be enough to actually employ journalists and editors and such like.

    Just as we’re seeing the phasing-out of analogue TV, we’ll eventually see people stop printing dead tree papers; and stop scheduling TV at certain times, moving to a permanent on-demand model; etc. The thing is that the majors are on this game as well.

    L

  37. Lew 37
    17 May 2008 at 9:14 pm

    Travellerev: Thanks for that link by Bridget Griffin-Foley.

    I see what you’re saying, but the problem is that you think I’m arguing there’s no concentration of ownership, but I’m not. I’m just saying that making shit up on the spot without fact-checking it doesn’t help your case any or speak well for your critical habits.

    L

  38. Ari 38
    17 May 2008 at 9:28 pm

    Lew: The media is most certainly NOT holding Labour to account, at least not in an unbiased fashion. There are a lot of really good leftist, environmentalist, and identity politics critiques to the Labour government that simply aren’t being run. Instead we have endless populist drivel on tax cuts and how the public is “hurting”, with no exploration into the causes behind rising oil and food prices, no exploration on whether Labour could actually be reasonably expected to do anything about it, and no exploration into whether tax cuts are a favourable economic policy at this time.

    I have no illusion that this has at least something to do with the business model big media is run under, but that doesn’t mean we can’t challenge them back, too. It wouldn’t be hard for them to dig a little deeper into things.

  39. Phil 39
    18 May 2008 at 10:42 am

    “Isn’t it funny RedLogic how the ignoramuses that comment on this site refuse to accept information that could enlighten them a bit. And how everything instantly becomes a “conspiracy theory’.

    You tell of a conversation with your daughter who tells you how these polls are conducted and Bam you’re a conspiracy theorist. ”

    Yes, actually it IS funny, because neither you, Trav, or RedL, have any idea what you’re actually saying.

    Why do polling companies target certain demographics at certain times of day? Because it’s good business sense, plain and simple.
    They work to very strict demographic targets and if you’re tying to poll working parents, then there isn’t much point calling them in the middle of the day!

    Contrary to your opinion, polling companies use very sophisticated statistical modelling to make sure that the results they get are as accurate as possible. Methodology, weighting, calling strategies, and best practice are all reviewed on a regular cycle, and when I see ignorant dismissive attitudes like yours, I weep.

    One thing I will agree with you on is that, this far out from an election, they don’t mean much. However, that doesn’t make them unnecessary. To do so would be like saying that peoples expectations of inflation or interest rates two years ahead are irrelevant. I can tell you now, they’re very VERY relevant, and offer an intriguing look into the psychology of the voter/consumer

  40. Lew 40
    18 May 2008 at 10:47 am

    Ari: If enough people cared, the business model mandates that those sorts of critiques would be given air time. But apparently they don’t. If you see a gap in the market, I suggest you fill it.

    Incidentally, this is why we have public service broadcasters such as Radio NZ, the BBC and PBS. They’re subject to a somewhat (but not entirely) different business model.

    L

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