Login | Register Share:
  Guess quote | Authors | Isles | Contacts
Jim Bolger [1935-0] New Zealander
Rank: 112
Statesman, Former Prime Minister of New Zealand


James Brendan "Jim" Bolger ONZ was the 35th Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1990 to 1997. Bolger was elected on the promise of delivering a "Decent Society" following the previous Labour government's economic reforms, known as Rogernomics.


QuoteTagsRank
I mean you really can target your answers to get the instant response and I think that is a very manipulative type of polling. I really have no time for that worm at all.
101
Politicians, no matter who they are, shouldn't be able to manipulate the public on a single issue and then call an election at the height of support - that's a little bit of a manipulation of democracy.
102
So to that extent that was a very sharp reminder a few months out from the election that we weren't performing in the eyes of the public to the level that they wanted if they were going to re-elect us. So we went out and were much more upfront on issues.
103
I think we have a fascinating new and quite dominant input into politics - and it wont go away. From time to time, people articulate a view that we should ban opinion polls, but that's nonsense.
104
And I think the rolling polls put more pressure on them to sustain their beliefs and to improve their delivery of the policy and their delivery of the ideas so that they can garner support for whatever principle they're articulating.
105
Nigel might have an earlier date, but I think it's unprecedented from my memory. So it is a reminder to everybody that the public can move very rapidly on some issues and therefore what looks settled may not be.
106
And if you're getting a poll coming out month after month saying something and then all of a sudden does an enormous swing in one direction - you are dealing with a more volatile electorate than most people believe they have.
107
I'm much more attracted personally to governments going their full term. It's very hard to have a fixed term election I know with ah... a parliamentary democracy, but I've always had an instinct to say there should be a fixed term.
108
So I think that we're in a very heightened and somewhat unusual period of politics and polling around the countries that New Zealanders take close interest in.
109

The script ran 0.001 seconds.