David Cormack

Happy centrist Christmas!

Christmas has always been the doorway to next year. Just one week separates Christmas from starting anew. And 2020 has been pretty universally shit.

It all started with insane wildfires in Australia, made worse by climate change and Scott Morrison. It ends with the world still suffering from Covid, climate change, and Scott Morrison.

The UK has been cut off from Europe due to a new strain of Covid and Brexit. The dickholes who sold Brexit as Britain taking back its own sovereignty...

Best of: TV & Film

Just as a break from politics, I thought I'd give you some television and film recommendations so you can watch these over the Christmas break when your family is too annoying to deal with:

Film

Having a 2 year old, I actually got to watch very few films this year, but there was one outstanding film I watched: One Cut of the Dead. 

I cannot emphasise enough how important it is that you go into this film only knowing the 2 sentence blurb:

...

2020-12-20 20:23:42 +0000 UTC View Post

How did I do?

It's been wild. 2020 eh? Strange times.

I saw Finlay MacDonald tweet asking that columnists list what they got wrong this year. I thought that's a good idea. So, I've been reading back over what I wrote.

While I still wrote for the Herald, I said that foreign policy was shaping up to play an important role in this year's election. I think I got that really really wrong. Unless you count the global spread of a virus to be foreign policy.

In the same column I said we had some ...

The early stars

It's been a weird period politically.

Labour has a majority but has spent the first period of its political honeymoon ruling things out. National has been navel-gazing but is yet to find itself. ACT has pretended it doesn't have any more MPs than David Seymour, while the Greens have undoubtedly been the best of the bunch, at this early stage.

There was some concern that the agreement with Labour wouldn't go through, a group of young activists from Auckland were fighting for the Gr...

Yes it's a climate emergency, it always has been

This Wednesday the Government is going to declare a climate emergency.

Good.

But if all its doing is declaring an emergency with nothing accompanying it then what's the point? 

I am told that there is action accompanying it, and that's being worked through Cabinet.

I could only speculate on what that might be but so long as it is something that goes towards reducing our emissions then that's a good start. Or at the very least a plan to reduce them.

A good st...

It's time for a better frame

A few weeks back, more than 50 charities wrote an open letter to the government pleading with it to increase benefits ahead of Christmas. You see there were tens of thousands newly jobless, food banks were seeing record demand and youth homelessness had seen a massive increase.
Stuff reporter Henry Cooke asked the PM at a post-cabinet press conference whether she would raise benefits before Christmas.
She said no. And was rightly criticised for it.
"Increase benefits" has become some...

Kill referenda with fire

I recently did an interview with The Detail podcast. The main premise was whether Labour was wasting its mandate and why the Prime Minister kept strait-ja...

Pretty good start, Boris

I must concede that this Cabinet is a good start.

I had caught word that Kelvin Davis definitely did not want to be Deputy PM and that it was being worked out how to get Grant Robertson into the role, and I thought that there would be no way the Māori Caucus - and Māori supporters of Labour - would be ok with that. Except it seems that in stepping down, Kelvin has gained a much, much stronger Māori presence around the Cabinet Table. And that can only be a good thing.

I am firml...

Greens right to take deal, membership right to oppose it

The deal the Greens were offered by Labour was pretty shit. 

It was always going to be pretty shit. Remember that Labour does not need the Greens for anything. This term.

But they will likely need the Greens after 2023. It would be surprising if a party was to win a majority in two successive MMP elections (though if they perform well this term, who knows?), so being able to work together is important.

My biggest gripe with the deal is that the Labour leadership thinks ...

The aftermath

I've needed some space from thinking about politics and the election. I had so many media spots and interviews and columns that I didn't get much time for me, and my family. So, I'm sorry if you missed me.

It was an election result that was ultimately a bit boring, but an election that was anything but.

Heading into Saturday night, I think the only question left unresolved was whether Labour would get a majority or not. The only other question I'd been thinking about was whether t...

The Endorsement

It will come as no surprise to most of you that I think you should party vote Green.
I would never tell anyone how to vote, but I wanted to lay out my thinking.
Obviously, I'm left-wing, and I don't believe that Labour ruling as a majority is left-wing enough, I think the Greens are needed in coalition to drag them left.
But there are several other reasons.
First off, if you want Jacinda Ardern to be Prime Minister then paradoxically you should party vote Green.
If the Greens p...

Patreon down

So patreon isn't working terribly well, meaning that you haven't been able to listen to the podcasts.

If you go here: https://www.davidcormack.nz/podcast/season-1-wellington-central

You'll be able to hear all three episodes.

Sorry friends.

Dave Tells Us about Wellington Central, episode 3

This is the third and final episode in this mini-series. In it I talk to Grant Robertson from Labour.

I wanted to know why Labour has been so centrist, does Grant actually want a second Mt Vic Tunnel, and why did Grant cite housing in his maiden speech in 2008 and it's still such a mess?

Dave Tells Us about Wellington Central, episode 2

Again as Patrons, you get first dibs on these episodes.

This episode is with the Greens' James Shaw.

James also has reckons on who is the best Mayor of Wellington, we canvass the Green School and I finally find out why James used to bully me.

Episode 3 with Grant Robertson is about to hit your inbox. 

Dave Tells Us about Wellington Central, episode 1

I have recorded a podcast Mini-series called Dave Tells Us about Wellington Central. 

In it, I have interviewed the three major candidates for Wellington Central at the upcoming election:

National's Nicola Willis

The Green's James Shaw

Labour's Grant Robertson.

While the series is ostensibly about Wellington Central, the conversations veer wildly away from being myopically about Wellington.

In the series you'll hear who the three think the best mayor o...

The hole returns

Already this year we've seen Grant Robertson reveal his enormous package, several times in fact. Today we got a hole.
We all remember Stephen Joyce's hole of the 2017 election. It was an alleged gap in Labour's budget of $11.7 billion (11.7 being a cursed number as it's the number of millions being given to the Green School).
This time round, Grant Robertson has accused National of having a $4 billion hole in their alternative budget.
Something about using the wrong numbers from trea...

Back in the Herald

Hi Patreon friends. I just wanted to let you know that I'm back writing a mini-column for the Herald in the lead-up to the election. I'll be out on Thursday.

Sadly the column will be behind the pay-wall (though I think it's in the print edition), and the Herald own the copyright to the words I write. However you people are still the champions of my heart, so don't feel sad.

I'll still be running my usual column here, and I'll try to weave as much of my Herald stuff into my Patreon...

Boring campaigns in times of a pandemic

Everyone agrees, 2020 is a shitter. It's been madness, Australian wildfire, murder hornets, pandemic, United States wildfire, I'm sure something exciting happened on Shortland Street, feeling the Bern 2.0, Bernie losing again, malarkey.

And then along came New Zealand's election campaign and boy it's weirdly dull right?

Maybe it'll get fun when  the debates start. But today National released an ad and crikey, it's ... an ad. 

2020-09-13 01:48:49 +0000 UTC View Post

The Greens got schooled

  
I've been holding off writing on the Green School debacle, largely because I wanted to see how it played out.
When it first broke, an advisor for a political party messaged me with a doom and gloom forecast. I looked at the story and didn't think it was a huge deal. Shows what I know huh?
Without wishing to re-canvass everything, because god knows there's enough already written, I want to cover off a few points.
Firstly, I've spoken to James since this went down and h...

Where the hell are the Greens?

Remember that North & South cover? That was in the lead up to the 2017 election. Oh how we laughed. Who were they trying to reach with that photo shoot?

I guess they were at least trying to reach someone?

At the moment the Greens have gone invisible. Prior to Covid it looked like the Greens might be the party at the forefront of the issue du jour - Climate Change.

Events, though, have certainly conspired against climate change getting its day in the sun.

There was ...

Where are the benevolent billionaires?

I have a moral objection to charity. I think that it's a bandage over a seeping wound. We should be aiming to fix systemic stuff as a society, not letting small groups do desperate fund raisers so that stray cats and dogs have somewhere to sleep.

And also those who give are often those who don't have a whole lot to give.

But then you get told about the philanthropic billionaire. The rich folk who so kindly give away some of their money to things like malaria treatment, or pay off ...

Electoral dysfunction

I get it. I really do. National would desperately want the election delayed for a number of reasons. All of which are self-serving. 

That's not what they'll tell us. 

Leader Judith Collins went on Q&A this morning and said it would be good for democracy and that National would help the Government delay the election until next year. 

I bet it would.

2020-08-16 02:36:28 +0000 UTC View Post

Chalk and cheese

In the last 24 hours we saw the launch of the Labour Party's campaign, the National Party release its list, and the Green Party announce another in its big policy pushes.

Putting aside the National Party list announcement because yawn, I wanted to focus on the Labour campaign launch and the Green's housing policy announcement.

The difference is stark.

In my "How to campaign" series on ...

The Opposition is in dire straits

Not the banal 80s soft rock band, but man, is the opposition in a terrible position.
Last night's poll wasn't the insanity of TV3's 60 pointer for Labour, but this poll was still horrific for the opposition.
When I say opposition, I mean those parties not part of the Government: National and ACT. At the moment the opposition is on 37%. Just seven weeks out from the election the opposition is at 37%. 
For context, the poll that saw Andrew Little admit that maybe he wasn't the rig...

Poll dancing

Before Tova O'Brien had even finished discussing last night's poll result, National had a press release out saying this was a rogue poll: one of those outlier polls that happen occasionally but are completely detached from reality. In her interview for the news broadcast, National leader Judith Collins also repeated that it must be a rogue poll.

Very Winston response that.   

Some other gallery journalists who got the press release from National were a little surprised, ...

All MPs can be scummy. But some MPs are more scummy than others.

It's been pretty gross. 

Monday we got yet another resignation from the National Party which wasn't a surprise, they've been bailing like Henry the Eight's 7th and 8th paramours.

But this one was weirder. It was Rangitata Electorate MP Andrew Falloon. His statement invoked the suicide of his friends at a younger age and said that he'd lost another friend recently and was suffering mental health problems and would need to take time out.

In the middle o...

How to campaign: Labour

Over the coming weeks I plan on writing a column setting out how I would design an election campaign for each party (that is currently in Parliament).

This week is Labour.

Current status: How good is their situation? Just about every polling company has them over 50% at the moment, which has never been achieved at an MMP election. In fact, you need to go all the way back to 1951 to find the last time a political party got over 50% of the vote in an election in NZ....

Strong team

Jesus Christ.

What an utter shitshow these last couple of weeks have been. 

To see where we are now it's worth looking back about 18 months. That was the first time a key group of National Party MPs and supporters decided that Simon Bridges had no chance of winning the election. This was about the time of the Jami-Lee Ross scandal.

They all thought Muller was definitely a leader in waiting but he wasn't ready yet. Collins was going to be installed.

Except she was ...

The Taming of the Kaye

This morning National's Deputy Leader Nikki Kaye fronted up to Jack Tame on Q&A to talk about National's week of lies.

For a detailed timeline, I wrote about it all for the Sunday Star Times, which you can read on this link here (for free!) 

I just wanted to talk about...

Politics is awkward.

That's it. That's the post.