Posts by Moz
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That's a very narrow window when you consider it valid for people to want this: between discovering Public Address and turning 18. Although since this is pure anecdote, I claim to know thousands of youths who desperately want to vote, but can't because of discrimination that's illegal under the UN HR treaties NZ has signed up to. Viz, discrimination on the grounds of age is illegal, except when it applies to people of a certain age.
Back when I was a youf I considered it offensive that lawmakers made bizarre laws that greatly limited what I could do, claiming some sort of democratic mandate while denying me the ability to participate in that mandate. From discriminatory age of consent laws, and before that outright making my sexuality illegal, through to trivia like declaring that my testimony would be ignored because of my age but if I defended myself I'd be tried as an adult. There's also the wide range of "adult" ages, from 5 or so when you can consent to some medical procedures (but not withhold consent, oddly) through to 25 when you're no longer financially dependent on your parents, by way of some truly insane ages like the various "operating dangerous weapons" permits (12..21), taking dangerous drugs (ages 5 and up) and owning things (18). Being disenfranchised wasn't the thing that most offended me about discrimination on the grounds of age.
I suspect that if we did actually research this area, we'd find that there is a "window of civic responsibility" that means best results would come from enfranchising people between the ages of 12 and 20. Despite being well outside that window, I would be quite happy to see that happen (should my suspicion be correct, obviously).
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New Matilda has a better article: https://newmatilda.com/2016/03/19/chaos-in-canberra-week-in-politics/
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Turns out I was insufficiently pessimistic about the Liberals liberal-ness. They've bullied the education minister into wrecking the program.
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Speaker: The real problem with the ‘Kiwimeter’, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Yeah, sorry Moz, that's bullshit.
You don't sound sorry.
I agree that it's bullshit, but apparently for the opposite reason. I don't consider it essential to know exactly where Raglan is and how it relates to other suburbs of or around Auckland, and I think it's bullshit to demand that people do. I'm happy if that makes me less "kiwi".
I could as reasonably ask you to describe the people of Whakatu then get pissy when you don't understand that it's a city as well as a suburb, and clearly in this context we're talking about the suburb.
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I’d trust the results of the phone survey a lot more than I’d trust the results of the postal survey (which would have severe response bias directly related to the topic in question)
I wouldn't have guessed that, which is another reason you don't want amateurs designing these things. Can you fill in the blanks a little - or are you just having a dig at people who think "nice pen" is a good way to bribe someone?
Is not having a postal address strongly correlated with a particular opinion on prostitution? Or is it the highly mobile people who tend not to get mail sent to addresses that have percolated through however many layers to get to a survey company? Or even less likely to get through, are you assuming it'll be based on the electoral roll (which could presumably be justified if you cared more about voters than non-voters).
(also, thanks for the Raybon line Alfie, that was funny)
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Speaker: The real problem with the ‘Kiwimeter’, in reply to BenWilson,
Only 5 out of 8 of those are in Auckland. Raglan is another town altogether, and Balclutha and Cuba St are not in Auckland.
Ooops, so my assumption that there must be Auckland versions of the latter two was worng. Raglan... that's kinda like claiming Petone is not part of Wellington. I mean technically it's not, but ...
I wonder if "Balclutha" is the generic for "south of Cuba St" or are they actually aware that it's quite different from Invercargill, let alone Wanaka or Wakefield.
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Speaker: ‘Kiwimeter’ is a methodological…, in reply to linger,
it is a really bad idea to include an item that is systematically more ambiguous or more stressful for one particular subset of respondents.... identify the problem by cognitive testing
I now have a vision of a lab with a white-coated researcher holding a clipboard while someone sits in front of a computer filling out the survey. And every time the subject says "oh, f*** you" the researcher ticks a box. I know the power relationships make it unlikely that that would actually happen, and I fear that a subject who didn't complete the survey might not be counted, but I can easily imagine swearing at the researcher in that situation.
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8 Tribes
Did they have to say at the very start "everyone lives in Auckland"? Those suburb names meant almost nothing to me. I know the words, barely any more and definitely not the stereotypes. I've visited Auckland, but when I had to choose a major city to live in, I moved to Sydney.
It's just another way to start off on the wrong foot with the 2/3rds of NZ who don't actually live in Auckland.
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Speaker: The real problem with the ‘Kiwimeter’, in reply to Kumara Republic,
echoes, unintentionally or not, of old American citizenship tests
That may be history in the US but it's very much alive today in Australia. The questions are not as bad as you might fear, they have been cleaned up a lot since the Howard-era version which was insane ("name the state flower of Victoria" type questions). There are practice tests online if you want to play (some better than others).
My father-in-law found them tricky despite living here longer than I have, because a lot of them were inane and seemingly designed to filter out people who are not native English speakers and those who haven't done Australian multi-choice tests before. Lots of odd wording and the usual "one obviously silly, one probably wrong, guess between the other two" type stuff.
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Speaker: The real problem with the ‘Kiwimeter’, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Without even starting to think about whether 'having a tiny proportion of what was unjustly seized from your iwi returned a century or so later' is 'special treatment'?
We have much better questions in Oz, because we have honest-to-bob Libertarians in parliament. Oddly, he is very strongly against property rights and when I asked him about that he started talking "all lives matter" type nonsense.
we think the property rights of remote and rural Aborigines should be upgraded to the same as everyone else, allowing them to fully participate in the general economy.
Note the failure to mention that if he was serious this would mean invalidating all the squatter rights and going back to square one over most of Australia, negotiating a treaty to base the new land rights (for white people) on.
In an Australian context what the above means, BTW, is extinguishing collective land rights and forcing tribal land to be divided up between individuals, granted to them as freehold title, and allowing them to sell it. Which is not-very-coded for "sold to mining companies".