David Cormack posts
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The squeezed middle
The middle class is a lie. Every election, we are told, is decided by "middle New Zealand". And depending on your outlet, this either means those who consider themself 'middle class', or the even worse, "centrists".Today I want to talk about the middle class. What I'm abo...
BBQ season a bit more charred than normal
So every summer, all the political nerds have nothing to nerd about, so they nudge each other and say that 'BBQ season is in full swing'. This is a suggestion that political parties will be off having their wee cliquey BBQs where leadership spills be plotted.This is usually a fabrication and...
The identity post mortems
That US election was a shocker eh? All the vibes, all the mood, all the media, it all pointed to a Harris win. Someof the polling did too, but it really gave the Dems a Romney-2012 experience where he felt it in his bones that he was going to win.I haven't really read any of the longer-form "...
The Rates increases will continue until morale improves
There's an article in the Herald todayabout an older woman living in Karori who is leading the "revolt" against the rate increases in Wellington. And look, I get it. I live in Wellington, too, and yes, the rate increases have been a lot and made it harder to get by.But...The woman's ...
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Bit of a different angle today. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that periodically, I like to dip my toes into hot-music takes. Probably my most infamous one was my comment that "music in the 1990s was pretty shit except for Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness." I got roundly...
The "they"
Whenever an event of political significance occurs, pundits spring forth. They are there, afterall, to help us make sense of what just happened. Or rather we are there to help you make sense. Because through my various media engagements I consider myself as having pun-did.I can recall vividly doing ...
Can we start talking differently about climate change?
So. It's been a while, eh? I've been involved in some super intense and heavy work for the last 5 1/2 months, which has pretty much eaten up all my time. I am genuinely sorry and should have been writing more - if not for anything else than my mental health, which has taken a battering.I'...
How we do politics
I find it really sad. Golriz is a friend of mine so this one is personal too. What she is accused of doing is definitely bad, and it is definitely not behaviour we expect from MPs.I don't want to relitigate this specific incident, other than to say that I think the Greens, and Aotearoa's par...
David's kosher salt
This has taken a while. I have wanted to say something on the Israel/Palestine situation since October 7, but I have been afraid, and unclear of my own feelings.For context, I'm Jewish. Insofar as my mother is Jewish, and if that's the case then you're locked in the club for life. I don&...
What is an election, really?
This piece has been written by my colleague and dear friend, Tasmin Prichard. It's pretty good. If you like it, I might invite them to write other pieces. If you don't, I still might because fuck you it's my Patreon.By Tasmin PrichardAn election is the government’s way of focus-groupin...
A quickie
TV3 hyping its poll as a game changer suggests it will show National is going to need NZF and ACT to govern, which will be a shit show. But also, is NZF really going to support repealing of the foreign buyers ban? Noted lover of pro immigrants, Winston Peters?Without the repeal of that, National'...
Where's the fiscal plan?
edit: I AM A DUMB DUMB. I READ TAX PLAN AS FISCAL PLAN. That said, they haven't released the modeling behind the tax plan either. So it sorta stands. ----A while back, National said this: Well PREFU has been and gone. Even Paul Goldsmith got his fiscal plan out within 2 days of PREFU last electi...
Unless it's a mass debate, what's the point?
Last night we all lost. It wasn't even a debate. It was two men who seem to think the same just answering questions. If you're going to have a debate then do what Lange and Muldoon did and have them sit at a table and actually argue points with one another. That would be worth something to t...
The toothlessness of Labour
Every time National says anything. Anything. A torrent of experts come rushing out of the woodwork to discredit it. It's not even Labour or the Greens that are doing the attacking. It's actual experts.Today's example in a long list, is economists Michael Reddell (very right wing/conserva...
Bad day for the right; may not matter
By nearly any metric, National had a shocking Sunday. And given Luxo’s predilection for all things fundy, this was possibly especially upsetting. Day of faith indeed.It started with Luxo on Q+A where he got kinda destroyed by Jack Tame (side note: when Jack was announced as the new host of Q+A I w...
National's cursed period
The last week was National's worst week in a very long time. And today brings more news that add insult to injury.Apparently the party made the strategic decision to launch its tax policy earlier in the week to get ahead of whatever it was that Labour was announcing at its campaign launch. So th...
The major parties continue to blunder
Yesterday National was cock-a-hoop. And you might think that was because of the succession of scandals and mistakes that Labour had been making over the last month or few. I mean everyone was talking about Labour's blunders. Nobody was talking about any of the bread-and-butter issues that Labour...
The power is yours
My column last week in the Post (which I'll republish in full below) was bleak. I was recovering from Covid when I wrote it, and feeling pretty down about the whole state of politics (the news this morning about Kiri Allan is awful and I really hope she's doing ok and surrounded by people wh...
They're not sending their best
If you're someone who votes Labour or National, you must be a sad panda.My political awakening happened at the 1993 election when I was 9 years old. I distinctly remember Richard Prebble losing Auckland Central and that was apparently a Very Big Deal.The first election I got to vote in was 2002 ...
Just say no to NZ First
I was thinking about writing this as my column for The Post. But decided to keep it to Patreon since the audience here is much smaller, and I'm worried that anything I write about NZ First just gives them attention, making it more likely they'll get back in.I've spoken to key folk in Nat...
Back in print
With the launch of The Post, they got a bunch of new columnists.I was invited to be one. So I'm writing once a month for them.Glad to have made the front page while avoiding the words "disgrace" or "embattled". You can read my first column here: https://www.thepost.co.nz/a/nz-new...
Indian mirage
In among all the weird news of the last few weeks was a wee announcement from National that didn't garner much coverage.Christopher Luxon announced that he would make getting a Free Trade Deal with India a major priority of his Government.In speech at the India - New Zealand summit, Luxon couldn...
Too much water
Kieran McAnulty was given a hospital pass to end all hospital passes. After the Government had passed Three Waters, it still wanted it revamped because everyone hated it and National was successfully turning it into an election issue.Kieran, as Minister for Local Government, had to go away and figur...
Who's afraid of the big green wolf?
Remember 2014? It was an eternity ago. But National had that ad with the rowers. It's lasting legacy would be that it used the Eminem-soundalike that saw National sued.But the ad's message was that because National was a slick, streamlined unit, it would be a better Government than the shamb...
Bonfire of the inanities
Chippy coming out and continuing to butcher Labour's policy programme isn't a surprise, but gosh it's cynical politics.Everyone knew that National was planning a small-target strategy when it thought it would be going up against Jacinda Ardern, but now that's changed and it's Lab...
State of the bleugh
God I wish we stopped doing state of the nation speeches. They're no such thing and it's such a lame Americanism.Anyway, Luxo had his moment in the sun (after postponing it twice due to shit weather). It was better than last year when he made up a communist family he'd never spoken with ...
Curia poll exposes big problem for National
I'm going to be smug. In the last 6 or so months, nearly every "pundit" has said that National was going to canter to victory at the election. I have been one of two hold-outs that I know of. Just me and Matthew Hooton have said all along we thought Labour would win.I was basing my asses...
Double poll!
Well well well. Yesterday morning when both 1News and Newshub announced they were doing polls concurrently, I tweeted:Given that both channels rushed out to poll immediately following the changeover to Chippy, I thought it would be too soon to have a marked difference.I got my first inkling that I m...
The Chips are no longer down
An earlier version of this said JA had handed the election to Labour. I'm a chump. I meant National. So I've been saying that I thought Labour would stumble over the line this year. There weren't many commentators predicting a Labour win, I think me and Matthew Hooton were it.I'd pre...
Happy election year!
Ugh. I cannot believe we're back in an election year. Since Covid time has collapsed in on itself, so that everything is both flying past me, and moving incredibly slowly.All the wise financial folk seem to think this year is going to be a shitter. Not just for Aotearoa, but for most of the worl...
