David Cormack

National's vaccine response emblematic of its wider malaise

The vaccine programme has been going gangbusters. There is no debate about that. 

We love a per capita stat and we are now right up there with any country's vaccination programme in terms of percentage of country vaccined on any given day. Go us!

We're definitely going hard and fast now - and this is not a piece to debate whethe...

The spull that wasn't ... yet?

Saturday's alright for fighting. If you're one of the tragically online folk, like I am.

I talk to a lot of people. From all sides of the political spectrum. I do it because I'm a huge nerd, and because it's part of my job.

On Saturday afternoon I glanced at Twitter and saw Shane Te Pou announcing that the spill was on - someone was ...

The Risk of Mr Hosking

This piece was pulled for a few days while I tidied it up, I'm now republishing it in the wake of news that Peter Williams, the poor man's Hosking, has left Magic Talk. 

"He's a great broadcaster". That's what a lot of journalists tell me about Mike Hosking.

But he's not really, is he? He's utterly contemptible.
2021-09-05 21:50:02 +0000 UTC View Post

How to end corporate imperialism?

Recently the US pulled the bulk of its military personnel out of Afghanistan. Things did not go well. Within like ... 2 days I think ... the Taliban, who it seemed have the patience of saints, took control of Kabul and with it the country as a whole.

Pre-pull out, Biden dismissed any claims that the Taliban would take the country in a quic...

In the culture wars, don't forget your rank

It's pretty gross. 

National has taken a hard turn straight into culture wars. It's gone hard on both coded and non-coded racism, there was some queer-baiting earlier in the year when Judith said after "Googling" conversion therapy, National would support any ban; then lo-and-behold when the time came to vote on actually ban it, Natio...

You won't get a sniff without me

We had a family holiday last week. We drove from Wellington to Auckland with a two-night stopover in Rotorua.
It was cool. A lot of people were like "why don't you fly?!", but we wanted to drive. Gave us a chance to stop in other places (we also stopped in Taupō on the way home), and it also meant we had a car when we were in Auckland.
Bu...

Daddy, what did you do in the war?

Over the weekend, my social media feeds lit up with images of the goddamn ocean on fire. The fire was from a burst gas pipeline that ran in the Gulf of Mexico.

People were very swift to attribute blame to unfettered capitalism driving large corporates to do things that were against broader human interest, in the drive for profits.

Th...

"Hate speech", or hate speech?

The Government has announced its proposed work programme to reform our hate speech laws.
There's a lot of people opining about it online. Tova O'Brien did a Tova interview pushing Minister Faafoi to answer whether millennials calling boomers "cunts" would be hate speech (I may be paraphrasing). Faaf prevaricated and didn't really answer.
T...

The missing pillars of National

Yesterday Chris Bishop tweeted 

I’m just imagining what people would be saying if @NZNationalParty was in government and we had the slowest vaccine roll...

2021-06-19 05:08:44 +0000 UTC View Post

In defence of communications staff

Yesterday Andrea Vance burst into the Twitter NZPOL limelight with a column about the opacity of the current Government.

She opened with a quote from Jac...

Nick Smith has opened the floodgates*

With the sudden announcement of Nick Smith's retirement from politics, National welcomes back that powerhouse Harete Hipango.

I'm told that a number of National List MPs are keen on getting the hell out of dodge, but nobody wanted to be the first to go because they would be responsible for ushering Harete back into parliament.

Harete...

You put your left toe in

Please don't take your left toe out.

As far as I can remember, that was the most left-wing budget in my lifetime.

The bit that most people took out was the increase to the benefit. Up by a max of $55 per week come next year. That's an increase of less than $3,000 per person so it's not mind-blowingly huge but when you're living on th...

Shitty policies, shitty polls

Last night was the first poll TV3 has done since the election. The timing was a bit weird, coming just ahead of a Budget. Usually TV networks wait until after the Budget to report on how people feel about the Budget.
I remember watching the Budget as a kid, and the only thing my old man cared about was the price of cigarettes.
Anyway, the ...

Commsnishambles

Last week the Government announced a pay freeze for all public sector workers earning over $100,000. It also said that those earning between $60,000 and $100,000 would only get pay increases under "special circumstances", while those under $60,000 would see business as usual

The blowback was swift and fierce. I idly wondered if the Governm...

Thank you for your patience

Thank you friends. Dad is now out of hospital and seems to have made a full recovery. This means normal service will resume and I will be back writing regularly again.

Appreciate your support.

Is it even a labour party if they're not supporting labour?

Yesterday the Government, which we need to remember is *just* the Labour Party, announced it's putting a wage freeze on the public sector for three years.

In a coup for its communications team it was largely reported that this would be a wage freeze for those earning over $100,000. Except it's not. For those earning over $60,000 they will ...

Wee pause

Hello friends, I must apologise; I haven't been able to get to a column lately. My old man is in hospital so that's taken most of my focus.

I've got a couple of pieces boiling away that I think will be worth the wait. Both involve a particular media outlet and its shitty talent doing shitty things.

Thank you, and I'll be back as soon...

The minimum wage is better; benefits are not

New Zealand now has a minimum wage of $20 per hour.

That's better than it was, by quite some margin. When Labour took control of the treasury in 2017, the minimum wage was $15.75.

That's a 25% increase in 3 1/2 years. Strangely it was a major part of NZFirst's coalition agreement with Labour that has seen it go up so much in such a s...

The weirdness of National's tactics

National is the party of opposition. Just. It's a meaningless title that's given to the largest party not in government. Usually their gig is to "hold the Government to account” or present an alternative vision of what New Zealand would look like under their stewardship. This latter option is a far better one than the former at winning over vo...

Spending capital

For 3 1/2 years people on the left have been crying out for Jacinda Ardern to do something with all the popularity she'd amassed. Labour was rewarded with a near-perfect response to Covid with a majority at the last election, and still it seemed the party was wracked with timidity to do ... anything.

And then yesterday they did something.<...

Words still matter

Two years ago New Zealand suffered its worst terrorist attack. 51 people died. 40 were injured. It was horrific.

The day after the attack I sat down to write my column for the Herald. I didn't know what to say. I had to write about the terror attack. There was nothing else I could write about. But what could I say? It felt like to me that ...

Trust in Government

A couple of years back, the Labour-led Government announced it was the "year of delivery", then promptly failed to deliver anything of note.

It did have to operate within the confines of NZFirst's whims, but nevertheless that phrase - "year of delivery" - was used as a stick to beat them over and over again.

Despite this, what Labour...

What if the State doesn't care?

A few of my friends that were big-time Labour supporters are starting to go through some disillusionment. They genuinely believed that freed from an NZFirst handbrake, and free from the perceived "nuttiness" of the Greens that maybe Labour would really deliver something left wing.

Except Labour is not a left-wing party. You might charitabl...

He's running?

For those of you outside of Wellington you may have missed the utter cluster fuck that is our current council.
Sure there are a handful of gems there - Fleur Fitzsimmons is pretty good and Rebecca Matthews is an absolute star - but for the most part they are the pits.
Local Government is viewed as where good people go to die, and maybe it'...

A quick poll

Hey, I just wanted to gauge how you, my favourite poeple who pay, feel about me opening up posts after a certain amount of days so people can see what I serve up, and maybe I get more subscribers?

I'd make it a week unless it was an absolute banger column, then I might give it a day or two.

What does Waitangi Day mean to you?

As a kid, it meant fuck all. I never understood what the fuss was. There always seemed to be arguments and protests at Waitangi when politicians would go there. Why didn't they just have a day off like I was?

In fact this attitude was still present when I was at university. I just didn't appreciate what Māoridom meant for Aotearoa New Zea...

Make those responsible for climate change pay

The release of the Climate Commission's draft advice to the Government was released yesterday and it's ... well it's advice.

First off, there was a comms fuck up in that some journalists got embargoed copies, and some did not; meaning that some outlets were able to have fulsome articles about it as soon as the embargo lifted as others stru...

Stop buying houses if you already own one

More and more wealth is being captured and held by a smaller group of people.

The housing crisis is a good example of this. According to census data, in 1991, 61 percent of people aged 25 to 29 years lived in an owner-occupied home. By 2018, this had dropped to 44 percent. Similarly, for those aged in their late 30s, the rate dropped from ...

The purge

I've been seeing reports of it for a few days now. Lots of people complaining on Twitter that they've lost followers in large numbers.

I don't pay *that* much attention to my follower count (I do pay some attention as I near milestones, like X thousand), but I hadn't noticed a drop-off of followers. This morning I got a message from a frie...

The case for shunning Chris Liddell

He's our man! Our man in the White House. The Kiwi who got into the Trump administration from day one and now looks like he'll still be there until the end. The longest serving senior member of Trump's administration outside of his Cabinet. Aren't you proud, New Zealand?
To know Liddell, we should look at some of his background.
He was a s...