Tuesday 20 January 2009

Greatest living New Zealander?

Hands up all those who think Helen Clark is the greatest living New Zealander?  Well, frighteningly, 23% of Herald website readers do. 

And apparently Don Brash thinks the greatest living New Zealander is Roger Douglas!  Now, that’s sad, isn’t it, when your greatest living NZer is a politician?

Who’s the greatest living NZer in your assessment?

14 comments:

Ayrdale said...

I've always been a fan of Sir Peter Tapsell...hope he's still alive. An orthopaedic surgeon, MP, speaker of the house and man of mana...

Anonymous said...

Russell Coutts is back. Yeah! He is going to show us why we should put talent before loyalty.

StephenR said...

Website polls are notoriously unreliable and prone to hijacking - I believe Winston was elected 'most trusted politician' a few months back when Greens voters got pissed off that Fitzsimmons wasn't included in the poll.

Right on about Douglas though - hands up who'll be going to his state funeral? Apparently there's an NZer out there who was critical in winning the Battle of Britain, but IMHO he really needs to do something after the event in question.

Peter Cresswell said...

Stephen, you'd be meaning Sir Keith Park, who died in 1975.

StephenR said...

Ah nuts.

Anonymous said...

That army guy Apiata (sp) walked (or ran) up a hill. How does that make him great?

He will appeal to all the swooning right wingers no doubt...;-)

Anonymous said...

Sir Keith was a gentleman.

LGM

Anonymous said...

What about Peter Leitch QSM?

LGM

Anonymous said...

LGM he was mentioned.The poll was:

Helen Clark: 1265 votes (19%)
Willie Apiata: 1220 votes (18%)
Sir Murray Halberg: 872 votes (13%)
Peter Jackson: 800 votes (12%)
Peter Snell: 682 votes (10%)
Colin Meads: 659 votes (10%)
Nancy Wake: 433 votes (6%)
Peter Leitch: 326 votes (5%)
Stephen Tindall: 251 votes (4%)
Louise Nicholas: 230 votes (3%)

I think Graeme Hart is the greatest living NZer.

Jeffrey Perren said...

Peter Creswell, of course!

Anonymous said...

Louise frickin Nicholas??? I give up. Kill me now.

Peter Cresswell said...

I meant to say, "Who’s the greatest living NZer in your assessment, apart from ourselves of course?"

I don't want to make the competition for the others too stiff. :-)

Anonymous said...

Ruth

Thanks for the list. It's interesting who is mentioned and who is absent!

We could get someone really annoyed and say.........Dave Dobbin!

LGM

Anonymous said...

Of that list, Nancy Wake without a doubt. A true heroine of the French Resistance.

I wonder how many of the respondants knew who she was.