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Your ideas? Who are NZ’s most powerful people this year?
October 30th, 2009I’m helping the Listener put together its Power List for 2009 and would love to know who you think should be there.
Last year the Top 10 were, in this order: John Key, Bill English, Alan Bollard, Tumu Te HeuHeu, Steven Joyce, Pita Sharples, Rodney Hide, Helen Clark, Michael Cullen and Gareth Morgan.
The Listener Power List also includes the 5 key influencers in various sectors. Last year in Business and Economy, they were: Graeme Hart, Mark Weldon, Adrian Orr, Craig Norgate and Jim Bolger.
In Maoridom it was Paul Morgan, Jim Mather, Wharehuia Molloy, Hinerangi Raumati and Willie Jackson.
In the law, they were: Geoffrey Palmer, David Colins, Annette Sykes, Greg King and Greg O’Connor.
In Agriculture, they were: Chris Kelly, Henry van der Heyden, Andy West, Frank Brenmuhl and Dean Nikora.
In Health and Medicine they were; Ron Paterson, Stephen McKernan, Len Cook, Pat Snedden, Deborah Powell and Ian Powell.
In Media, Entertainment and Culture, they were: Flight of the Conchords, Derek Lardelli, Richard Taylor, Campbell Smith and Imogen Johnson.
In Science and Technology, it was Jim Watson, Garth Carnaby, Peter Gluckman, Stephen Goldson and Jim Anderton.
In the Media last year, it was: Tim Pankhurst, Jeff Latch, Bill Francis, John Fellett and John Barnett.
Your picks?
Tags: Listener Power List
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October 30th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Wally, Wally, Wally!!!!
October 30th, 2009 at 9:54 am
what no Paul Henry?
I don’t think Phil Goff will be there this year, what about Bollard, has he really had a huge effect on our economic direction?
I think Keys would be at the top of the list, along with the Auks’ John Banks, (you didn’t say the influence had to be positive did you?)
October 30th, 2009 at 9:58 am
And since there wasn’t a single person involved in the Internet in last year’s powerlist I took the liberty of adding my own – http://bit.ly/2e6ArI
October 30th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Sorry Bernard but I cannot take a list seriously that last in year in the Business Category included Craig Norgate, despite the Sliver Fern Farms debacle having already occurred
October 30th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Instead of this pointless exercise, why not produce a list of the crucial issues facing NZ and get some debate going.
This goes in the “who cares?” basket. No wonder our productivity is so low.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:23 am
How about nominating yourself in the media category, Bernard? The Crafar farms story was probably the biggest scoop to date by a blogger in NZ, and the coverage that the site gets in general is a great ‘new media’ story.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:27 am
I think Bernard is hoping we will say “Bernard Hickey should be on the list”!
October 30th, 2009 at 11:31 am
How depressing
October 30th, 2009 at 11:56 am
The ones sitting with calculators made in China – again sadly!
October 30th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
John Key: The power to procrastinate.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
I’m not sure what is meant by “power”. If power includes the ability to make Listener readers have an apoplectic spasm and spill their ground coffee over their sushi then I vote for Brian Tamaki.
Seriously, religious leaders in New Zealand have very little direct power as we are on the whole a pretty atheistic bunch but their pronouncements are given influence beyond the size of the flock on the basis of the reaction – or rather over-reaction – of the section of the public/media that run things in this country.
Also, I wonder if there are any leaders of ethnic communities in New Zealand (other than Maori or Pakeha) who would make the top 200 in terms of influence?
October 30th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Yes – I agree Bernard is fishing for a nomination.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
@ Marky mark – in that case Michael Laws should surely be nominated?
You mightn’t agree with him, but he sure calls a spade a spade and gets people talking. I feel compelled to listen to him if I’m driving long distance in the mornings (short distance is too frustrating to tune in) – it’s like a train wreck that you are drawn towards! Sometimes I agree with what he says, and pride him for being the only one with the balls to come out and say it in this overly PC world we live in.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Cameron Clyne
Ralph Norris
David Morgan (soon to be Gail Kelly)
Mike Smith
and they’re all Australian
October 30th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I vote the Auckland Power Board as a hole….sorry dyslexic..fingers.
Cos, Talking of POWER, what infrastructure system does not have a FAIL-SAFE scheme for 280000 TAXPAYERS to see in the dark, or even keep their INTERNETs or businesses humming.
Disaster waiting to happen me-thinks.
Electrifying.
Where did all your TAXPAYERs and BILLS….money go. …obviously not on BUSINESS CONTINUANCE planning or infrastructure.
Must get some more bright sparks or a longer extension cable…guys.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Raplh has a kiwi accent, and Mike has an English one …..
October 30th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Is there such a thing as the Auckland Power Board?
October 30th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Who cares…not me…but ya get my drift.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
apologies, should have said they all live in Australia
October 30th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Michael Laws???? That’s the bottom of the barrel. What about Richard Till; reconnecting us with our roots and cheese rolls.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Mike in Welly – spot on.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
@ Sore-Loser
My point was going to be that it was a privatised former public utility that had stuffed up, so not relevant to taxpayers. But I have just read the story and see it was Transpower who were at fault, I had assumed it was Vetor. So no point at all really …
October 30th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
@ruru – clearly you don’t agree with anything ML says, and that’s fine, you don’t have to. But you can’t deny his popularity, for better or worse. People either love him or love to hate him.
October 30th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
@veedub: M Laws has said quite a few things I agree with, and quite a few I don’t agree with. Is the man popular? It only takes one radio station to employ someone, ditto one newspaper. Granted he’s managed to persuade a small conservative town that en ex-MP is a good idea for mayor, but that would not be at all hard given he has had a national profile for some years. I would say Laws is a bomb-tosser among thinkers: every month or so he gives vent to an idea, waits for the predictable outrage, replies and sits back, job done. The job being to keep his name in front of the public which keeps his various portfolio careers ticking over nicely. He knows just what to say to a journalist to keep them interested. He’s high-profile and populist, not popular. Very similar to the late National MP for Invercargill Norm Jones.
October 30th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Mr Crafer
October 30th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Lets be honest here, Kevin Rudd and Glenn Stevens (RBA Governor).
At the moment these are the guys who decide whether we sink or swim.
October 30th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Paul Henry-he doesnt give a stuff!Did you see him this morning with the treasury geezer-Priceless!!
October 31st, 2009 at 9:52 am
A serious one: Steven Joyce; power behind the throne?
November 1st, 2009 at 7:06 am
Our own blogger Iain Parker – in an ideological famine, hasn’t he given us food for thought in the last year? Almost banned from this site 18 months ago for his ‘ravings’, he reigned in and in the process hit a target market. Timing is everything. Well done for your perseverance. Most other people forced to sit on the other side of silence just leave NZ (I am assuming you still live there).
November 1st, 2009 at 7:21 am
Central Banker on sabatical John Key is the grand poobah and then you need not look much further from the tree for the rest, the Capital Markets Taskforce, the Tax Task Force, the Productivity Taskforce, Sec-Com CEO, Commerce Commission CEO, NZ Directors Institute CEO, Treasury, NZDMO, you will note they are all proponents of the Washington Consensus, unfettered freemarket, financial sector ticket clippers and a large majority have a past rooted in banking, which you will note has been “rooting” or “harvesting” the the basically decent majority of folks in the “Realsector” for quite some time with their predatory money changing commercial pyramid scams.
You need look no further than the co-operatives of corporate raiders and the economic hitmen/women of the privately owned international banking network and their corporate subsidiaries, to find the true levers of power that operate behind the diplomatic curtain in this country.
Essential to their power are a dumbed down bunch of media commentators, or those who have a knowledge of it but not the balls or decency to tell it how it is.
November 1st, 2009 at 7:40 am
Iain, I was told 18 months ago that this blog was not a democracy (I was hitting hard at the Real Estate industry and its cosy relationship with the current tax regime in NZ, not to mention the banking industry). I am disillusioned that NZ even comprehends the value of freedom of speech and/but are happy to pay the price (or expect their children/grandkids are). That said this is the only place to ‘whinge’