Canary in the Mine

One political poll does not an election make. The "surprises" in today's Herald-DigiPoll result were not actually all that surprising, when all polls this year are surveyed. The long-term (and averaged) results show the following: 1) There has been a gradual slipping in Labour support - they will almost certainly be giving up any hope of governing alone. 2) Although there was a drop of 3 points for Labour today over the previous Herald poll, that March figure of 47.7% was Labour's highest for any poll this year (and four points below Labour's best at this time in 2002). 3) There was no surprise in the NZ First result. The low March Herald-DigiPoll figure was probably a "rogue" result, and NZF has generally been tracking well above 5% ( as high as 9% in NBR's March poll). 4) In the last month or two, there has been a small but gradual pick-up for National across the board. 5) There has been a small but gradual shift away from the two main parties to increased minor party support. On the year to date, the following is an election night possibility: NZ First as the spoiler/king-maker; a surge in minor parties as the result of a middle-ground battle between Labour and National which leaves neither distinguished, and which ignores a lot of disgruntled conservative voters.
An SST-BRC poll which came out yesterday did little to change things.

The demands of retailers are shaping not just our malls and shopping centres, but also the social environment, according to the NZ Herald. "Instead of liveable communities we’re getting destination shopping - sprawl by another name." The Herald says contradictory council development strategies are working against the desire to build integrated communities and creating artificial and aesthetically awful environments.

When Prime Minister Helen Clark loudly praised Sweden recently as a model for New Zealand, she kept very quiet about an important aspect of Sweden's education system. Under Swedish reforms of 1992, municipalities are obliged to give 85 per cent of the calculated average cost per student in the state schools to any school of parent choice – for all students, not just some targeted groups. Enrolment rules were also opened within the state sector, with money following the pupils into state sector schools in other municipalities. A strong case of selective vision on Ms Clark's part.

Parents want their children to have a better education than they did, and just over half of them are putting money aside towards it. A Versus Research poll shows 54 percent of parents say they are saving for their children’s education, but rate it alongside saving for holidays and travel. Aucklanders were the best savers, with 68 per cent of parents saving for their children’s education. They were also most likely saving to send their children to private or boarding schools.

"What happens when the state has a prior right to my children? What will happen to my children's right to me?" Those were some of the questions Douglas Farrow raised at an April 25 talk at St Paul University, painting a chilling scenario of state intrusion and control of intimate family relations that is already on its way as provinces rewrite their laws to make way for same-sex marriage. Farrow, co-editor with McGill colleague Dan Cere of Divorcing Marriage: Unveiling the Dangers in Canada's New Social Experiment, warns that if all relationships among parents and children are legal constructs, the state can do whatever it pleases.

"The election of Pope Benedict XVI and the global war on terror have brought unprecedented attention to the role of religion in our world," says sociologist Peter Berger. "There has been particular interest (most specifically in the case of Islam) as to whether specific religious traditions are compatible with the institutions and values of liberal democracy. But focusing exclusively on what is believed and practised overlooks a potentially far more important question: how religious precepts are believed and practised." Berger says all contemporary religious communities now face three options: to resist pluralism, to withdraw from it, or to engage with it. None is without difficulties and risks, but only engagement is compatible with liberal democracy. Engagement means that the tradition is carried into the open discourse of the culture, and that those who represent the tradition make unapologetic truth claims.

What is the world's fastest-growing religion? Most news reports suggest it is Islam, but a new book makes a compelling case it is in fact evangelical Christianity, which is sweeping through places like China, Africa, India and Southeast Asia. Author Jim Rutz makes the point that Christianity is overlooked as the fastest-growing faith because most surveys look at the traditional Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church while ignoring Christian believers who have no part of either.

Vladimir Putin gave a bizarre speech this week in which he described the fall of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" and said that an "epidemic of collapse has spilled over to Russia itself." An analysis of how Russia has imploded following the breakdown of nearly every civil society institution.

Two of the world's leading scientific journals have come under fire from researchers for refusing to publish papers which challenge fashionable wisdom over global warming. A British authority on natural catastrophes who disputed whether climatologists really agree that the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, says his work was rejected by the American publication, Science, on the flimsiest of grounds. A separate team of climate scientists, which was regularly used by Science and the journal Nature to review papers on the progress of global warming, said it was dropped after attempting to publish its own research which raised doubts over the issue. The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame. The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it. Dr Oreskes's study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser. However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics. Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents - and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.

Tail-out: Following its successful creation of PC man, Labour intends to enter the 2005 election campaign with a new slogan -- Homo: Electus.