David Farrar (blogger)

Last updated

David P Farrar
David Farrar at the New Zealand Open Source Awards.jpg
Farrar in 2010 at the New Zealand Open Source Awards
Born (1967-09-11) 11 September 1967 (age 57)
NationalityNew Zealander
Alma mater University of Otago
Victoria University of Wellington
Occupation(s)Blogger, pollster, political activist
Website kiwiblog.co.nz

David Peter Farrar (born 11 September 1967) is a New Zealand political activist, blogger and pollster. He is an infrequent commentator in the media on internet issues. Farrar manages his own market research company, Curia.

Contents

Farrar has held many roles within the New Zealand National Party and has worked in Parliament for four National Party leaders.

His blog, Kiwiblog , was the most widely read and commented on New Zealand blog in 2009. [1] Farrar also maintains a presence on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. In 2007 the National Business Review stated that: "Any realistic 'power list' produced in this country would include either Farrar or his fellow blogger and opinion leader Russell Brown." [2]

Education and personal life

Farrar was educated in Wellington, attending St Mark's Church School and Rongotai College.[ citation needed ] He is of Jewish descent on his father's side. [3]

He studied at the University of Otago and later at Victoria University of Wellington.[ citation needed ] Farrar served on the council of Otago University as a student representative, was president of the Commerce Faculty Students' Association and chaired the Student Representative Council. While he was at the University of Otago, he was the Otago correspondent for Campus News an alternative student newspaper published by a group in Auckland but which was distributed nationwide. The newspaper was published between 1984 and 1988, and Farrar's involvement ran from 1985 to 1987.[ citation needed ]

Career

In 2004, Farrar founded Curia Market Research. [4] [5] It regularly conducts nationally representative New Zealand opinion polling. Farrar was involved in the development of the New Zealand Political Polling Code. [6]

Farrar is a member of the Market Research Society of New Zealand. He was vice-president of the Internet Society of New Zealand, InternetNZ and formerly a director of New Zealand Domain Name Registry Ltd (.nz Registry Services), [7] and is a frequent commentator in both broadcast and print media on Internet issues.[ citation needed ]

Previously Farrar worked as a staff member of the Leader of the Opposition (1999–2004), a staff member at National Party Head Office (1999 and 2004), a staff member in Ministerial Services under Jim Bolger (1996–1997) and in the Prime Minister's Office under Jenny Shipley (1997–1999).[ citation needed ]

Farrar wrote weekly columns for the National Business Review and the iPredict futures site, and is an occasional commentator on Radio New Zealand and Newstalk ZB.

The New Zealand Listener 2009 Power List named Farrar the fourth most powerful person in the New Zealand media, saying "Kiwiblog has become part of the daily routine for Beltway insiders and others with an interest in politics and public policy." [8]

Political involvement

Taxpayers' Union

This article is part of a series on
Conservatism
in New Zealand
Coat of arms of New Zealand.svg
Principles
History
Politicians
Activists
Parties
Active

Defunct

Organisations and media
Related

In 2013, Farrar, with Jordan Williams, established the fiscally conservative lobby group, the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union. [9] The Union is based on the United Kingdom TaxPayers Alliance and resulted from both Farrar and Williams' interaction with that group's founder, Matthew Elliot, through the International Young Democrat Union. [10]

Young Nationals

Farrar was previously national secretary of the youth wing of the New Zealand National Party, the Young Nationals. [11] During his tenure as national secretary, he survived some media calls for his resignation when he was arrested for his part in a joke press release, along with fellow Young National Michael P Moore, announcing that maverick National MP Michael Laws had been assassinated and that the Prime Minister was one of over 10,000 suspects. The joke press-release was made with the New Zealand Police logo. Farrar and Moore were subsequently arrested, but not convicted of any crime as they chose to participate in a diversion scheme for first time offenders of minor crime. The infamous fax and related media items are now displayed at the Backbencher Bar on Molesworth Street in Wellington, across the road from Parliament.[ citation needed ]

Farrar is an honorary life member of the Young Nationals, due to his many years of service to the organisation. [12]

Campaign manager

At the 2005 general election Farrar was the volunteer campaign manager for National's Wellington Central candidate Mark Blumsky. Blumsky was defeated in his attempt to become an electorate MP, but succeeded in entering parliament via the party list. [13]

Political views

Farrar professes a classical liberal approach to politics, and identifies as a moderate of the centre-right on the political spectrum. He was a co-chair of National's Classical Liberal Policy Advisory Group at its formation in 2004. [14] He supported the legalisation of prostitution and of civil unions in New Zealand. Farrar supports a New Zealand republic and is on the National Council of New Zealand Republic campaign. Economically his views are more in keeping with those of parties to the right of the National Party, such as the libertarianism of the minority ACT party.

Farrar has appeared before Parliamentary select committees on a range of issues, including the Electoral Finance Bill. He often publishes his submissions on his blog. [15]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Appleby (politician)</span> New Zealand politician

Michael George Appleby is a politician, cannabis activist, and lawyer based in Wellington, New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kerry Prendergast</span> New Zealand politician

Dame Kerry Leigh Prendergast is a New Zealand politician who served as the 33rd Mayor of Wellington between 2001 and 2010, succeeding Mark Blumsky. She was the second woman to hold the position, after Fran Wilde.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Blumsky</span> New Zealand politician

Mark Herbert Blumsky is a former New Zealand politician and diplomat. He was Mayor of Wellington from 1995 to 2001, and a Member of Parliament for the National Party from 2005 to 2008. Blumsky was New Zealand's High Commissioner to Niue from 2010 to 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Benson-Pope</span> New Zealand politician

David Henry Benson-Pope is a New Zealand politician. He is a former Member of Parliament for Dunedin South and has been a member of the Dunedin City Council since 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Cunliffe</span> New Zealand politician

David Richard Cunliffe is a New Zealand management consultant and former politician who was Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from September 2013 to September 2014. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Titirangi and then New Lynn for the Labour Party between 1999 and 2017. He served as the Minister of Health, Minister for Communications and Information Technology and Minister of Immigration for the Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand from October 2007 until November 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marian Hobbs</span> New Zealand politician

Marian Leslie Hobbs is a New Zealand politician who was a Labour Member of Parliament from 1996 to 2008. She was initially a list MP and then represented the Wellington Central electorate. She served as Minister for the Environment and, later, as one of two Assistant Speakers of the House of Representatives. She represented the Dunedin constituency of the Otago Regional Council from 2019 to 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tu Wyllie</span> Rugby player

Tutekawa "Tu" Wyllie is a former New Zealand politician and rugby union player. A first five-eighth, Wyllie represented Wellington at a provincial level, and played one match for the New Zealand national side, the All Blacks, in 1980. He was the New Zealand First Member of Parliament for Te Tai Tonga from 1996 to 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Tennet</span> New Zealand politician

Elizabeth Patricia Tennet is a former New Zealand politician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Zealand Young Nationals</span> Political youth organization

The New Zealand Young Nationals, more commonly called the Young Nats, is the youth wing of the National Party, a centre-right political party in New Zealand, and a member of the International Young Democrat Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rongotai (New Zealand electorate)</span> Electoral district in Wellington, New Zealand

Rongotai is a New Zealand electorate, returning a single member to the New Zealand House of Representatives. The current MP for Rongotai is Julie Anne Genter of the Green Party. She has held this position since the 2023 general election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kiwiblog</span>

Kiwiblog is a New Zealand political blog written by pollster and classic-liberal National Party-aligned political activist David Farrar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grant Robertson</span> New Zealand politician (born 1971)

Grant Murray Robertson is a retired New Zealand politician and member of the Labour Party who served as the Minister of Finance from 2017 to 2023, as Minister of Foreign Affairs in November 2023, and as the 19th Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand from 2020 to 2023. He was the member of Parliament (MP) for Wellington Central from 2008 to 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass media in New Zealand</span>

The mass media in New Zealand include television stations, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and websites. Media conglomerates like NZME, Stuff, MediaWorks, Discovery and Sky dominate the media landscape. Most media organisations operate Auckland-based newsrooms with Parliamentary Press Gallery reporters and international media partners, but most broadcast programmes, music and syndicated columns are imported from the United States and United Kingdom.

Blogging in New Zealand is dominated by a community of around 600 blogs that comment largely on New Zealand politics, society and occurrences. One list of over 200 "author-operated, public discourse" blogs in New Zealand suggests New Zealand blogs cover a wide range of ideological positions but lack female contributors. Blogging is an active part of the media of New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Zealand Taxpayers' Union</span>

The New Zealand Taxpayers' Union is a taxpayer pressure group founded in 2013 to scrutinise government spending, publicise government waste, and promote an efficient tax system. The Union was founded among conservative figures, and is often regarded as a right-wing pressure group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2016 Wellington City mayoral election</span> New Zealand mayoral election

The 2016 Wellington City mayoral election was part of the New Zealand local elections and was held on 8 October to determine the next Mayor of Wellington. The incumbent was Celia Wade-Brown, who was first elected in the 2010 mayoral election. Wade-Brown did not seek re-election. Her title was pursued by her deputy, Justin Lester, councillors Jo Coughlan, Andy Foster, Helene Ritchie and Nicola Young, former mayor of Porirua City Nick Leggett and independent candidates Keith Johnson and Johnny Overton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2019 Wellington City mayoral election</span> New Zealand mayoral election

The 2019 Wellington City mayoral election was part of the New Zealand local elections and was held on 12 October to determine who would serve as Mayor of Wellington for the next three-year term. It was won by Andy Foster, who unseated the incumbent Justin Lester by 62 votes.

Several polling firms conducted opinion polls during the term of the 53rd New Zealand Parliament (2020–2023) for the 2023 New Zealand general election. The regular polls are the quarterly polls produced by Television New Zealand conducted by Verian and Discovery New Zealand (Newshub) conducted by Reid Research, along with monthly polls by Roy Morgan, and by Curia. The sample size, margin of error and confidence interval of each poll varies by organisation and date.

Several polling firms have conducted opinion polls during the term of the 54th New Zealand Parliament (2023–present) for the next New Zealand general election. The regular polls are the quarterly polls produced by Television New Zealand conducted by Verian and Discovery New Zealand (Newshub) conducted by Reid Research, along with monthly polls by Roy Morgan, and by Curia. Curia Market Research is no longer a member of the Research Association of New Zealand, following complaints and the resignation from RANZ by its Principal, David Farrar. The sample size, margin of error and confidence interval of each poll varies by organisation and date.

Jordan Henry Williams is New Zealand lawyer best known for his political activities, which are often connected to the National or ACT parties, and his lobbying for liberal and conservative causes. He is a founder and current Executive Director of the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union, President of the World Taxpayers' Association, a New Zealand Free Speech Union co-founder and Council Member, and the Chief Executive Officer and sole director of the Campaign Company.

References

  1. ↑ "Kiwiblog's 2009 stats". Kiwiblog. 26 January 2010. Retrieved 28 January 2010. 2.68 million visits, 6.00 million page views, 680,000 visitors
  2. ↑ Ben Thomas and David W Young (20 September 2007). "Politicians will be haunted by their past on internet". National Business Review. Archived from the original on 11 June 2011. Retrieved 21 September 2007.
  3. ↑ Kiwiblog – NZ Jewish achievers
  4. ↑ "About". Curia Market Research Ltd. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  5. ↑ "'Failure of oversight' on New Zealand academic freedom". Times Higher Education (THE). 15 June 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2024.
  6. ↑ "Pollsters meet to decide on code". The New Zealand Herald . 2010. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  7. ↑ "New Zealand Domain Name Registry" . Retrieved 8 November 2006.
  8. ↑ 2009 Power List. The New Zealand Listener. December 2009.
  9. ↑ "The New Zealand Taxpayers' Union | Kiwiblog". 29 October 2013. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  10. ↑ "The New Zealand Taxpayers' Union | Kiwiblog". 29 October 2013. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  11. ↑ "Young Nats not immune to 'boozy over-indulgence', says long-time party member". Stuff. 16 March 2018. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  12. ↑ "David Farrar comments on Young National harassment claim". RNZ. 28 November 2018. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
  13. ↑ Coddington, Deborah (4 March 2007). "Making a difference, one issue at a time". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 20 December 2007.
  14. ↑ "National Party Board approves Classical Liberal Policy Advisory Group" (Press release). New Zealand National Party. 13 May 2004. Retrieved 30 June 2012.
  15. ↑ David Farrar (10 September 2007). "My submission on the Electoral Finance Bill". Kiwiblog. Retrieved 23 September 2007.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.