Latest news with #AnythingCouldHappen
1News
18 hours ago
- Politics
- 1News
'Show trial': Robertson on turning down Covid inquiry public hearing
Former finance minister Grant Robertson has defended turning down an invitation to appear at public hearings of the Covid-19 inquiry, describing the process as a "show trial" and saying he's already given hours of interviews. A second week of public hearings at the inquiry was cancelled after former prime minister Dame Jacinda Ardern, current Labour leader Chris Hipkins, Robertson and former health minister Ayesha Verrall all turned down invitations to appear. Commissioners opted not to use their powers to summons the four ex-ministers. Robertson told Q+A earlier this week that the second phase of the inquiry, initiated by the National-led government, seemed to have a "show trial approach". Labour pandemic-era ministers Chris Hipkins, Grant Robertson and Ayesha Verrall have also declined. (Source: 1News) ADVERTISEMENT "I have participated in both phases of the Covid inquiry. In total, now I'm up to about four and a half hours worth of interviews," he said. "When I finished my most recent interview with this phase, one of the staff of the Royal Commission said to me, 'You've answered all of the questions we've asked and more.' "We have participated. I have participated. I don't know that in a lessons learned inquiry, the kind of show trial approach is actually that valuable." Asked why he thought it was a "show trial", Robertson argued: "We've got precedent. We haven't done this in Royal Commissions in New Zealand in the past, [where we] have politicians and former politicians come into the public arena." Government party leaders have criticised the ex-Labour ministers for not appearing at the inquiry, saying they were not fronting up to critical questions about their actions. Grant Robertson (file image). (Source: 1News) Robertson was appearing on Q+A in advance of the release of his memoir, Anything Could Happen, which is being released later this week. ADVERTISEMENT In the interview, he was also asked about the Labour government's pandemic-era spending levels, his views on New Zealand's tax system, and reflecting on moments in his life. After leaving politics, Robertson became the vice-chancellor of Otago University. Former finance minister defends pandemic-era spending Robertson was also asked about the release of a recent Treasury report, which intimated the government spent too much during the pandemic response. The former finance minister defended his actions and emphasised the proportion of spending that went towards initiatives, like the wage subsidy scheme. He said: "If we think about the period in the latter part of 2021, Treasury was absolutely saying, 'You've got to be careful about the amount you're spending.' "But they also recommended in papers I remember from August and September of 2021, when Delta arrived, that we should keep support going. Grant Robertson. (Source: Getty) ADVERTISEMENT "They said don't increase it too much, but keep it going. By May 2022, when the Budget was put forward, we closed the Covid fund. In a sense, I don't really disagree with them, at one level. I just think there's a little bit of hindsight there too. Yes, we had to be careful. "But they also said you need to look after businesses and families when Delta arrived." Robertson said he thought the delivery outcomes of the previous Labour government at the time "generally" matched the scale of spending on programmes. But he conceded "there are going to be things where it didn't work", including so-called "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects that turned out "weren't quite ready to go". "The spending there ended up happening both over a longer time, and perhaps not in quite the way we might have wanted." In its long-term insights briefing, Treasury officials wrote that "many programmes" in the Ardern government's fiscal response had a "lagged impact on the economy" and "proved difficult to unwind in later years" as high inflation emerged. Officials said the previous government spent on a "wide range of initiatives with varied objectives over the period. These included, among others, shovel-ready projects, the Jobs For Nature scheme, more public housing, and even the school lunch programme." ADVERTISEMENT Inquiry due to report back in February Covid-19 inquiry commissioners restated that they had "not changed its view that an open hearing would enhance public confidence in its processes". Inquiry chairperson Grant Illingworth KC said: "The Covid-19 pandemic was a significant event that affected every New Zealander. "The government at the time, through its ministers, made decisions about how we as a nation responded to that pandemic, which had implications for all of us. "We have been tasked with reviewing those decisions, and we thought it was important that the public see and hear for themselves important evidence about why some key decisions about the response to Covid-19 were made and for what reason." GPs say they've seen busy winter periods before and the system is ready to cope. (Source: 1News) Commissioners were due to report back to the Governor-General at the end of February 2026, and the decision not to proceed with a hearing would not impact timelines. ADVERTISEMENT A second phase of the Royal Commission into the Covid-19 response was introduced by the Government after a "first phase" which was completed last year. Some of the previous Labour government's decisions around the pandemic response proved to be extremely contentious – so much so that both ACT and NZ First campaigned on expanding an inquiry into those decisions. Expanding the terms of reference and public hearings into the Covid-19 response were part of National and NZ First's coalition agreement to form a government. For the full interview, watch the video above Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of New Zealand On Air
Scoop
20 hours ago
- Business
- Scoop
Grant Robertson Stands By Covid-Era Spending In Wake Of Treasury 'Rewriting History'
Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson is standing by his economic spending decisions, and rejects the suggestion the last Labour government did not have enough real-world experience. He says Labour was "absolutely" ready for government when Winston Peters chose the party over National in 2017, and the high volume of working groups was a result of wanting to include people in the areas "where there was big change required". Robertson was being interviewed by Susie Ferguson on Nine to Noon to promote his new book Anything Could Happen, which is available in bookstores from today. Covid-19 spending: 'Rewriting of history' He says Labour's election loss in 2023 was primarily because it was a "cost of living election". "There were other issues that sit beside that ... crime in Auckland was a big deal through that period of time, Covid, there was still some hangover from ... and just how much we'd been in people's lives. "I remember, and I recount in the book, door knocking in Wellington Central in that '23 campaign and a woman thanking me for for the work that we'd done and said 'but you've had nine years, and I think it's time for a change'. "It took me quite a while to convince her we had only had six. It sort of felt like nine for people because we were so involved in everybody's lives, but I fundamentally believe the core issue was around the cost of living - and people look for a change often when that's happening." Despite that, he stood by the fiscal decisions made at the time. "Treasury and others, as has been reported recently, were saying to us 'you need to be careful about the impact of what you're doing on inflation, on the economy' - and we knew that. "But as I say, Delta arrived August 2021, we had to deal with that - and actually the Treasury supported us continuing on with the spending that we were doing. It's a bit of a rewriting of history to be frank, to say that they didn't." He said the government did not know how long Covid was going to last, or the severity of the health or economic impacts - and was criticised by political opponents for not spending more in late 2021. "I remember vividly the day I got the report from Treasury in early 2020 to tell me that we were facing a scenario of 13.5 percent unemployment, and from my perspective as the person dealing more with the economic rather than the health side I just knew I wasn't going to stand by and let that happen." The Covid Recovery Fund was closed in 2022 but "then we get to the 2023 Budget and we're dealing with the Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle". "We all knew that we had to be careful with where we went, and we didn't introduce in large number of new measures after late 2021 but we did carry on with the ones we had, because we still needed to look after New Zealanders and businesses. "I get it that by 2022 the whole country - including us - was thoroughly sick of Covid." He said the more deadly Delta variant had needed additional support and interventions, and while the country reopening did not happen as fast as some would like, "we stayed the course on saving lives", pointing to a report from Michael Plank showing excess death rates significantly lower in New Zealand compared to other countries. Covid-19 division: 'This is not New Zealand' The policies were divisive though, and Robertson said his emotional response to the protest on Parliament's lawn was that "this is not New Zealand". As MP for Wellington at the time, he was perturbed seeing the physical and mental damage after the country pulled together during the pandemic. "They were being spat at for wearing masks, there were students going to the high schools around the area who had to be supported by security guards, and I just had that feeling 'this is not the country that I am so proud to be a part of'." "That was the big emotion that I had. And the fire, I remember thinking gosh, as well as the children's playground that's there in Parliament you've got two huge old trees that have been in the grounds forever and they appeared to be going up in smoke as well and it was just horrifying to watch. And then the violence that just followed on from that." He and other former ministers Jacinda Ardern, Chris Hipkins and Ayesha Verrall refused to attend the Covid-19 Royal Commission of Inquiry's public hearings last week. He said he felt he had cooperated, but was concerned about the nature of the public hearings, and "the precedent effect of calling ministers and former minsters to that, the capacity for material to be misused". "I think for me I'm up to about four and a half hours of interviews. When I finished my last set of interviews recently one of the staff at the Royal Commission said 'you've answered all of our questions and more', I left that meeting saying 'look, if you've got any further questions let us know'. He referred to the phrase the former ministers used in explaining why they were not appearing, that it would be performative, not informative. "This is meant to be a lessons learned exercise, I welcomed that, I think it's great that we've learned the lessons of Covid - but I think it was moving in a direction that was not really about that." Politics: 'We had a very clear plan' Robertson said Peters' announcement that he would go into government with Labour in 2017 was an "extraordinary few minutes in politics for everybody in New Zealand" - a genuine moment of not knowing what would happen. But Labour was, he said, "absolutely ready for government", pointing to the first 100 days plan, which included the Families Package: Family Tax credits, Best Start payments for young families, Winter Energy payments for older and poorer New Zealanders, and Accommodation Supplement increases. The government also set up the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care, and brought in a free first year of tertiary education. "We had a very clear plan. We also inherited a number of areas where there was big change required, and we wanted to involve and include people in that, and that's where you get working groups and so on coming from. "I felt like, you know, we balanced together some really important immediate issues that we were addressing, along with getting into those bigger topics which eventually turned into quite substantive change in the health system, vocational education, resource management and so on." He rejected the suggestion the 2017 Labour caucus had too many career politicians, and too little experience outside of politics. "I don't accept that at all. I mean, we had a good range of skills and backgrounds and experiences in our Cabinet." He said his understanding of the political and Parliamentary system was valuable, but he also learnt a lot about people from being an electorate MP. His electorate office was across the road from the Work and Income office and he would watch the people "at the end of their tether who we were there to help". "The same with refugees who resettled, or people who were struggling with housing, or the health system - you learn a lot, and we're all part of our communities, whatever working background that we might have had." Ardern approached him to take over from her when she was planning to step down as prime minister. Robertson said various factors led him to refuse the job - particularly, that he had seen what it required. "I obviously looked at Jacinda's decision in two ways. One was as her friend, where I could absolutely understand the reasons why she wanted to step away. As her political colleague, I was clearly concerned about what that meant for us as a government, and where we were heading." He said physical and mental health played a part in his decision not to take on the role, along with threats and abuse he faced towards the end of the Covid-19 response - but it was his decision years earlier not to pursue it that was a bigger factor. "And I felt that knowing up close what being prime minister was about, you need to be able to give that 120 percent, you can't go into it with any suggestion of doubts of whether you want to do the job - that would be incredibly selfish to do that. "So really those considerations were bigger for me." Childhood challenges Robertson's book also covers his early years as the son of a lay minister, as the sports-mad youngest of three boys, his struggles with telling his family about his sexuality, and the shock of his father's imprisonment. He told Nine to Noon his father being sentenced for stealing from his employer was "devastating" both personally for him as a young student and for his family, particularly his mother. With her husband in jail and her children studying, the family had little income at that point. "My father was obviously the person who had to go to prison, and he'd done something very stupid to put himself in that position. But it reverberates quickly. "I loved my father very much. I was angry with him about what he'd done. He'd let down a lot of people around him and breached the trust of a lot of people around him, but I still needed to be there for him. "And so the next sort of 18 months or so that he was in prison, I visited him pretty much every week and learned a lot about what is good and mostly about what is bad in our prison system. And you know, just try to support him as best I could, but it was a devastating blow for everybody." He said he was fascinated as a 12-year-old by the 1984 election "which marks me out as a complete nerd, I realise", but politics was often discussed and debated within the family. "My mother is a very political person with strong views, and we heard about them a lot when we were at home. And you know that, I guess, flowed through to me." Opening up to his family about being gay was more of a struggle, however. "I didn't really have a word for it for a while, but particularly around the period of the Homosexual Law Reform Act that - obviously, there was huge debate, it was not a positive debate ... so that was, unfortunately for me, almost exactly the time that I was coming to understand that I probably was gay. "And I was growing up in the church and while it was a fairly liberal church environment it still, there was connotations and negativity ... I kind of kept it in a box for a long time. "One or two friends sort of found out, and then I had an unfortunate incident where I got very, very drunk and went to a party and the subject my sexuality was on show in a really unfortunate way ... I had a very supportive family through that period, and friends as well. But like a lot of teenagers, I was doing some pretty risky things while I was working out who I was."
Otago Daily Times
a day ago
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
'Rewriting of history': Robertson stands by Covid spending
By Russell Palmer of RNZ Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson is standing by his economic spending decisions, and rejects the suggestion the last Labour government did not have enough real-world experience. He says Labour was "absolutely" ready for government when Winston Peters chose the party over National in 2017, and the high volume of working groups was a result of wanting to include people in the areas "where there was big change required". Robertson was being interviewed by Susie Ferguson on RNZ to promote his new book Anything Could Happen, which is available in bookstores from today. Covid-19 spending: 'Rewriting of history' He says Labour's election loss in 2023 was primarily because it was a "cost of living election". "There were other issues that sit beside that ... crime in Auckland was a big deal through that period of time, Covid, there was still some hangover from ... and just how much we'd been in people's lives. "I remember, and I recount in the book, door knocking in Wellington Central in that '23 campaign and a woman thanking me for for the work that we'd done and said 'but you've had nine years, and I think it's time for a change'. "It took me quite a while to convince her we had only had six. It sort of felt like nine for people because we were so involved in everybody's lives, but I fundamentally believe the core issue was around the cost of living - and people look for a change often when that's happening." Despite that, he stood by the fiscal decisions made at the time. "Treasury and others, as has been reported recently, were saying to us 'you need to be careful about the impact of what you're doing on inflation, on the economy' - and we knew that. "But as I say, Delta arrived August 2021, we had to deal with that - and actually the Treasury supported us continuing on with the spending that we were doing. It's a bit of a rewriting of history to be frank, to say that they didn't." He said the government did not know how long Covid was going to last, or the severity of the health or economic impacts - and was criticised by political opponents for not spending more in late 2021. "I remember vividly the day I got the report from Treasury in early 2020 to tell me that we were facing a scenario of 13.5 percent unemployment, and from my perspective as the person dealing more with the economic rather than the health side I just knew I wasn't going to stand by and let that happen." The Covid Recovery Fund was closed in 2022 but "then we get to the 2023 Budget and we're dealing with the Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle". "We all knew that we had to be careful with where we went, and we didn't introduce in large number of new measures after late 2021 but we did carry on with the ones we had, because we still needed to look after New Zealanders and businesses. "I get it that by 2022 the whole country - including us - was thoroughly sick of Covid." He said the more deadly Delta variant had needed additional support and interventions, and while the country reopening did not happen as fast as some would like, "we stayed the course on saving lives", pointing to a report from Michael Plank showing excess death rates significantly lower in New Zealand compared to other countries. Covid-19 division: 'This is not New Zealand' The policies were divisive though, and Robertson said his emotional response to the protest on Parliament's lawn was that "this is not New Zealand". As MP for Wellington at the time, he was perturbed seeing the physical and mental damage after the country pulled together during the pandemic. "They were being spat at for wearing masks, there were students going to the high schools around the area who had to be supported by security guards, and I just had that feeling 'this is not the country that I am so proud to be a part of'." "That was the big emotion that I had. And the fire, I remember thinking gosh, as well as the children's playground that's there in Parliament you've got two huge old trees that have been in the grounds forever and they appeared to be going up in smoke as well and it was just horrifying to watch. And then the violence that just followed on from that." He and other former ministers Jacinda Ardern, Chris Hipkins and Ayesha Verrall refused to attend the Covid-19 Royal Commission of Inquiry's public hearings last week. He said he felt he had cooperated, but was concerned about the nature of the public hearings, and "the precedent effect of calling ministers and former minsters to that, the capacity for material to be misused". "I think for me I'm up to about four and a half hours of interviews. When I finished my last set of interviews recently one of the staff at the Royal Commission said 'you've answered all of our questions and more', I left that meeting saying 'look, if you've got any further questions let us know'. He referred to the phrase the former ministers used in explaining why they were not appearing, that it would be performative, not informative. "This is meant to be a lessons learned exercise, I welcomed that, I think it's great that we've learned the lessons of Covid - but I think it was moving in a direction that was not really about that." Politics: 'We had a very clear plan' Robertson said Peters' announcement that he would go into government with Labour in 2017 was an "extraordinary few minutes in politics for everybody in New Zealand" - a genuine moment of not knowing what would happen. But Labour was, he said, "absolutely ready for government", pointing to the first 100 days plan, which included the Families Package: Family Tax credits, Best Start payments for young families, Winter Energy payments for older and poorer New Zealanders, and Accommodation Supplement increases. The government also set up the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care, and brought in a free first year of tertiary education. "We had a very clear plan. We also inherited a number of areas where there was big change required, and we wanted to involve and include people in that, and that's where you get working groups and so on coming from. "I felt like, you know, we balanced together some really important immediate issues that we were addressing, along with getting into those bigger topics which eventually turned into quite substantive change in the health system, vocational education, resource management and so on." He rejected the suggestion the 2017 Labour caucus had too many career politicians, and too little experience outside of politics. "I don't accept that at all. I mean, we had a good range of skills and backgrounds and experiences in our Cabinet." He said his understanding of the political and Parliamentary system was valuable, but he also learnt a lot about people from being an electorate MP. His electorate office was across the road from the Work and Income office and he would watch the people "at the end of their tether who we were there to help". "The same with refugees who resettled, or people who were struggling with housing, or the health system - you learn a lot, and we're all part of our communities, whatever working background that we might have had." Ardern approached him to take over from her when she was planning to step down as prime minister. Robertson said various factors led him to refuse the job - particularly, that he had seen what it required. "I obviously looked at Jacinda's decision in two ways. One was as her friend, where I could absolutely understand the reasons why she wanted to step away. As her political colleague, I was clearly concerned about what that meant for us as a government, and where we were heading." He said physical and mental health played a part in his decision not to take on the role, along with threats and abuse he faced towards the end of the Covid-19 response - but it was his decision years earlier not to pursue it that was a bigger factor. "And I felt that knowing up close what being prime minister was about, you need to be able to give that 120 percent, you can't go into it with any suggestion of doubts of whether you want to do the job - that would be incredibly selfish to do that. "So really those considerations were bigger for me." Childhood challenges Robertson's book also covers his early years as the son of a lay minister, as the sports-mad youngest of three boys, his struggles with telling his family about his sexuality, and the shock of his father's imprisonment. He told RNZ his father being sentenced for stealing from his employer was "devastating" both personally for him as a young student and for his family, particularly his mother. With her husband in jail and her children studying, the family had little income at that point. "My father was obviously the person who had to go to prison, and he'd done something very stupid to put himself in that position. But it reverberates quickly. "I loved my father very much. I was angry with him about what he'd done. He'd let down a lot of people around him and breached the trust of a lot of people around him, but I still needed to be there for him. "And so the next sort of 18 months or so that he was in prison, I visited him pretty much every week and learned a lot about what is good and mostly about what is bad in our prison system. And you know, just try to support him as best I could, but it was a devastating blow for everybody." He said he was fascinated as a 12-year-old by the 1984 election "which marks me out as a complete nerd, I realise", but politics was often discussed and debated within the family. "My mother is a very political person with strong views, and we heard about them a lot when we were at home. And you know that, I guess, flowed through to me." Opening up to his family about being gay was more of a struggle, however. "I didn't really have a word for it for a while, but particularly around the period of the Homosexual Law Reform Act that - obviously, there was huge debate, it was not a positive debate ... so that was, unfortunately for me, almost exactly the time that I was coming to understand that I probably was gay. "And I was growing up in the church and while it was a fairly liberal church environment it still, there was connotations and negativity ... I kind of kept it in a box for a long time. "One or two friends sort of found out, and then I had an unfortunate incident where I got very, very drunk and went to a party and the subject my sexuality was on show in a really unfortunate way ... I had a very supportive family through that period, and friends as well. But like a lot of teenagers, I was doing some pretty risky things while I was working out who I was."
The Spinoff
2 days ago
- Business
- The Spinoff
The prime minister we almost had: Grant Robertson's memoir, reviewed
Henry Cooke reviews Anything Could Happen by former deputy prime minister Grant Robertson. He was almost elected Labour leader in 2014. He almost became the prime minister when Jacinda Ardern resigned in 2023. And he almost got a wealth tax over the line that same year. But not quite. In his new memoir Anything Could Happen, we naturally learn much about what Grant Robertson did do, from his days designing election-winning policy for Helen Clark's Labour government (interest-free student loans) to the frantic opening of the fiscal taps during the pandemic. But the book is haunted by all the stuff that Robertson didn't quite achieve. We hear about the achingly close Labour leadership loss to Andrew Little in 2014, and the genuine agonising over whether he should step up when Ardern resigned in 2023. Robertson openly expresses frustration about missed chances and lost arguments, even as he generally gives the other side a fair hearing. By 'the other side', I am talking about fights within the Labour Party – not politics itself. If you've come to this book believing that Robertson spent far too much while finance minister, and hoping for some kind of lightbulb moment of regret, you will be disappointed. Robertson does not argue that he and Labour got all the calls right. But he does make it clear that he still believes that a huge dose of spending was needed to combat the pandemic, and that while some level of cuts was needed by the time he left office, the state of the books was far from as dire as his critics now constantly claim. (Unsurprisingly for a committed sports minister, he calls in the international referee for this issue – noting that New Zealand's credit rating survived the pandemic intact, leaving it as one of 12 national economies with the top triple-A rating from two of the big global credit rating agencies by Budget 2022.) His argument is somewhat undercut by Treasury's long-term insights briefings, released just weeks before this book was published but long after it was written, which shows officials believed the stimulatory spending was too high after Budget 2022 and was contributing to inflation. Robertson was never the kind of finance minister the median Treasury staffer would adore. He might run a university now, but he will be a politician forever, and it shows in the passing strays he has for the National Party – he notes that one of the first things new leader Christopher Luxon did was call for Labour to spend more money. So no, this is not an apologia for the country's debt track, and if you came looking for that you will not find it. But if instead you are trying to understand more about the decisions of the sixth Labour government, you will have a far better time. Unlike Ardern's recent memoir, this is a book squarely aimed at New Zealanders, meaning Robertson can actually get into the meat of some issues rather than just briefly explain them for foreigners. Tax, monetary policy and the difficulty of hosting international sporting competitions are all dealt with at some length. Robertson embeds into this policy and political history a lot of personal detail. We learn about his somewhat troubled upbringing as a gay teenager in 1980s Dunedin, how he met his partner Alf, his brief career as a diplomat, and a lot about a back problem in recent years that contributed both to mental health issues and his decision not to take over from Ardern. Yet Robertson the policy strategist is never that far away – he explains his father's imprisonment for stealing company money in part by noting that the fraud put his family above the student allowance income cap. As a book the memoir is extremely readable and often funny, much like a Robertson general debate speech. I ate it up in about 48 hours and I think anyone interested in New Zealand politics could do similar with no real boredom. Sections on Labour's time in opposition contain juicy tidbits from the Cunliffe debacle that leave you wanting more, as well as Robertson's play-by-play of Andrew Little's resignation as leader, including Robertson's exasperation with him. We get what I believe to be the fullest accounting yet of the NZ First and Labour negotiations in 2017, including Ardern staring down Winston Peters over his desire for a numbers-based immigration cap. This was a red line for Labour and one that Ardern worried had cost them government – and according to Robertson ended up making Peters so bitter he ruined much of the government's work programme in both immigration and workplace relations, given they shared a minister. Indeed, the enmity between Robertson and Peters emerges as one of the clearest throughlines in the book. The relationship between Labour and NZ First in government sounds like it was far worse offstage than on it. Where Robertson does admit fault with the Covid cash infusion is with the so-called 'shovel ready' programme of spending announced in Budget 2020, which deeply involved NZ First's Shane Jones and therefore became 'politicised', in Robertson's viewing. The base-level bitterness Robertson feels for a man and party who stymied so much of his programme has likely been increased by Peters' embrace of the Covid fringe. After all it is hard to imagine Ardern stepping down without that Covid backlash spilling onto parliament's lawn – and Robertson is clear that he thought Ardern stepping down would greatly harm the party's chance of re-election. If Ardern hadn't stepped down, Robertson might still be in the Beehive, or at least able to properly run on a wealth tax in 2023 as he had long planned. He might not have time to write a book, busy instead with the cut and thrust of politics he was addicted to for so long, trying to get the books back in order himself. In fairness, all political memoirs are tales of chances not taken and battles not won. They are almost always written once the protagonist has lost an election or somehow been turfed from office. Robertson just has a few more sliding doors moments than most. Anything Could Happen by Grant Robertson ($40, Allen & Unwin) is available from Unity Books.
Otago Daily Times
2 days ago
- Health
- Otago Daily Times
Robertson troubled by 'health issues' in build-up to election
Grant Robertson fought the 2023 election hobbled by chronic back pain and in the wake of a related major health scare, his newly published autobiography reveals. The former deputy prime minister and finance minister — who is now vice-chancellor of the University of Otago — injured his back playing rugby while growing up in Dunedin. In his book, Anything Could Happen , Mr Robertson writes that he re-aggravated the old injury just before the 2022 Labour party conference, and that scans revealed he had a ruptured disc. On the last working day of that year he had scheduled a spinal cortisone injection to give him some pain relief. ''In a one in 10,000 event the anaesthetic that is used as part of the CT-guided injection was put in the wrong place,'' he wrote. ''As I went to stand up after the procedure my legs felt incredibly heavy. I tried to get up and could not. I had lost all the feeling below my waist ... after an awful night the feeling slowly came back and I was discharged.'' The health scare coincided with then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern having confidentially told Mr Robertson that she was contemplating resigning and retiring from politics — as she did early the following year. A ''highly strung'' Mr Robertson was in Dunedin that Christmas and, fearful he would re-aggravate his uninjured back, he started to have anxiety issues. Having been given medication, he made the unwise decision not to take it. ''About 2am I woke up and began shaking uncontrollably. I could not stop ... after what felt like hours, my heart began to slow a bit and the shaking stopped. I had no idea what a panic attack was, but it is clear to me now that this is what it was.'' After returning to Wellington Mr Robertson called then Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall and asked for the name of someone to talk to. ''Contacting them was the best decision I had made in many years in politics. I had conversations with a couple of people and settled on a therapist who would help me through my remaining time in Parliament.'' Mr Robertson writes that his bad back pain persisted through the election campaign and limited how much he — one of Labour's best campaigners — could contribute. ''I flew to Auckland and then down to Queenstown, popping pills all the way, to keep me going. I tried my best but in the final couple of weeks of the campaign the pain of sitting on flights was just too much and I had to pull out of a few events. ''I felt terrible letting colleagues down, but my body was calling time even if my mind was still going.'' Mr Robertson also reveals his misgivings about the party's 2023 tax policy. Having had his preferred option, a capital gains tax rejected, he was obliged to campaign on a policy of removing GST from fruit and vegetables — something he had previously called a ''boondoggle''. ''To be frank, I don't think I was very convincing,'' he said of his announcement speech. In an interview with the Otago Daily Times , Mr Robertson said he had given momentary thought to putting his name forward to replace now Dame Jacinda when she stepped down — although he had previously, and adamantly, said he would never stand for the Labour party leadership again after two previous failed bids for the top job. ''Of course I thought about it,'' he said. ''But I thought about it more in that context of not wanting to let others down, but I couldn't get past the fact that I'd made that decision and I was very comfortable with the role I was playing, and also I just knew what it would take, and not just because of the physical health issues I was facing, but also just where I was in my political career, and it just wasn't there.'' Mr Robertson said that Chris Hipkins had done his best to try to secure a third term for Labour. ''I don't think it mattered who the leader was, we were going to lose that election,'' he said. ''There were things that could have done better, and there is, I guess with Jacinda there's no counterfactual, what she might have been able to pull off, but that was an election where cost of living was just doing us in as a government. ''I continue to believe that we, you know, it might have been a different result in terms of the percentages, but I'm not sure once Jacinda left anyway that there was another result.'' ■ Anything Could Happen is published tomorrow. A full feature interview with Grant Robertson will run in The Weekend Mix on Saturday.
