Lange poll creates storm

Press, 2 June 1989, Page 4

Lange poll creates storm

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

This week’s “Dump Lange” public opinion poll by the Heylen Research Centre has created a storm of controversy in Parliament.

It is being seen as the first political poll of its kind in New Zealand — a poll that is intended to participate in the political process rather than just measure it.

Such polls are common overseas, particularly in the United States.

The poll’s questions enabled respondents to mark the Prime Minister just as unfavourably as otler polls have them to mark the Labour

Government. When respondents wanted to dump Mr Lange by 55 per cent to 31, they were matching the ratings of the National and Labour parties in other polls.

What was different about this poll was its focus on Mr Lange, not just in the questions asked but in the way the responses were written. Asked if he felt the poll was stacked against him, Mr Lange said: “I invite you all to real the poll and to read the commentary and form a view of its objectivity.” The poll measures the lack of support for Mr Lange and analyses his

personality in comparison with that of the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Palmer, and his former Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas.

It was taken at a time when there was a campaign either to replace Mr Lange as Prime Minister with Mr Douglas or to force Mr Lange to restore Mr Douglas to the Cabinet.

Mr Douglas’s return would be seen as a humiliation for Mr Lange, Mr Douglas earlier having said he would not work with Mr Lange as Prime Minister, and so likely to lead to Mr Lange’s resignation Apart from its detailed

condemnation of Mr Lange, the poll’s commentary is supportive of Mr Douglas.

The chairman of Heylen, Mr lan Brown, defended his poll in a long interview in the “National Business Review.”

He said Heylen had devised the questions and not Independent Radio News, which had commissioned it, or the “N.8.R.,” which had published it.

It had been drawn up as a one-off political poll and neither the Backbone Club — which has been supporting Mr Douglas — nor anyone else would be billed for it, he said.

Speculation has been rife in Parliament this week that the poll was more than it seemed.

For example, the first section of it was faxed out of the office of Brierleys in Auckland, which owns Independent Radio News but is not usually involved in its projects.

Mr Douglas’s press officer and tactical adviser, Mr Bevan Burgess, was asked yesterday if he had had a hand in drafting the questions or in writing up the results.

“I have given up commenting on questions like that, which reflect on the professional integrity of Heylen,” he said.