ANALYSIS
“I want to help build a modern, inclusive New Zealand where we do not accept children growing up in poverty. I believe we should set goals to eliminate poverty in New Zealand, and work out a programme of redistribution that will see incomes and spirits lifted together.”
So said Grant Robertson, who has just announced he will retire from politics to become Vice Chancellor of Otago University, in his maiden speech in 2008 as a new Labour MP.
Labour will miss him. He was a trusted confidante and chief adviser to Dame Jacinda Ardern during her time at the top, and has steadied the Labour ship through the upheavals of last year and the aftermath of a poor election result.
He is also well-known for his endearing qualities including his sense of humour, his love of sports - as Sports Minister, he had a particular focus on raising the profile and participation of women in sport - and as a huge fan of New Zealand music including the so-called Dunedin sound.
But while his value to Labour - not only as a policy wonk, but also as a polished political salesman - is unquestionable, his success as a politician is less black and white.
So what is his legacy, and how did he achieve it, given the social justice goals he set himself when he came to Parliament?
There are two key pieces of legislation that are part of Robertson’s - and Ardern’s - legacy.
The first - The Child Poverty Reduction Act - tackles what Robertson mentioned in his maiden speech. It requires annual reporting (this year’s is due on Thursday) and for the Government of the day to set targets to reduce child poverty.
The latest report, covering the year to June 2022, showed that all nine measures of child poverty have reduced, with eight out of nine of the child poverty measures statistically significantly lower than the 2017/18 baseline year.
The second - The Zero Carbon Act - puts the Paris Agreement’s climate change targets into legislation. This addresses what Robertson said in his maiden speech immediately following his comments about child poverty: “A modern, inclusive New Zealand also needs to be one that looks after our environment.”
These pieces of legislation are not all down to Robertson, obviously, but he was a key part of them.
As for achieving a “programme of redistribution that will see incomes and spirits lifted together”, Robertson would point to Budget 2021, which reversed the 1990s benefit cuts and lifted rates by $32 and $55 per adult. It was estimated to lift between 19,000 and 33,000 children out of poverty.
This was also criticised as not going far enough, of being half-hearted responses to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s recommendations. Climate change advocates have also been vocal about what they say was lacklustre action from the Labour Government.
But it’s not a case of simply saying “yes” or “no” to a certain level of poverty, or a certain level of environmental health. As Finance Minister, Robertson had to consider innumerable bids for government money in a national and international context of innumerable factors.
As Robertson said repeatedly during his time in that role, it was about finding the right balance.
The most pressure to make quick and complex decisions would have come in March 2020, and Robertson’s management of the books through the pandemic - “we went into that with no playbook” - is also a part of his legacy.
How he performed probably depends on your political leanings; Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has called Robertson one of New Zealand’s worst Finance Ministers.
The support for workers and employees, as well as government programmes such as Jobs for Nature, kept people in work while the country, or various parts of it, endured lockdowns of varying length and severity. Unemployment remained low while the economy kept ticking over as people kept spending.
Robertson said getting the country through the pandemic was what he was most proud of, noting advice at the start of the pandemic that unemployment was expected to head north of 10 per cent.
“We saved lives but we also saved livelihoods.”
But the massive cash injection that kept people spending also saw house prices balloon by 43 per cent in the first two years of the pandemic. This was a pattern that occurred in other developed economies where, as in New Zealand, the subsequent rampant inflation led to a cost-of-living crunch.
Robertson has repeatedly defended his decisions as keeping people afloat in the toughest of times - and that includes responding to the extreme weather events of last year - but the Coalition Government points out that the level of government spending hasn’t abated: from $81 billion in 2017/18 to a forecast $140b forecast for this financial year.
The pandemic response, including different mandates justified on public health grounds, also led to what Robertson said was his toughest time as an MP: the occupation of Parliament at the start of 2022 (Robertson was Wellington Central MP at the time).
His legacy might have included other methods of redistribution, but they were repealed (Fairpay Agreements), shelved (income insurance) by Labour leader Chris Hipkins, or ditched altogether (capital gains tax, and the wealth tax and low-income tax combo) - though the latter may yet be resurrected.
Robertson could have pushed through with these if he’d stepped into the void that Ardern left behind, but he decided against becoming Prime Minister in the aftermath of her shock resignation at the start of 2023.
Having been pegged early in his career as potentially the country’s first gay Prime Minister - Robertson stood unsuccessfully for the Labour leadership twice - Robertson decided he didn’t want the job anymore.
“Having been approximate to the job of Prime Minister, I know that if you’ve got a shred of doubt in your mind about whether you want to do it, you shouldn’t do it. That’s basically what the decision came down to,” he told the Herald in February 2023.
“I work very hard, so the commitment bit wasn’t what I was concerned about. It was the desire bit. Because if you don’t [have it] you’re not going to perform to the level I’d be happy [with], or anybody else.”
His financial experience will be seen as an asset in his new role as head of Otago University. The sector is under severe financial stress, so much so that job cuts are looming and universities are begging the Government for help.
Robertson was even part of a Government that, last year, answered that particular call from Otago by giving the institute $21 million.
It will be a return to the place where Robertson, who was born in Palmerston North, largely grew up.
He graduated from the University of Otago with a first-class honours degree in political science, but it was also where he cut his political teeth as a student politician, firstly as president of the Otago University Students’ Association and then as head of the New Zealand University Students’ Association.
He joined the Labour Party in 1997 and worked until 2001 for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at first managing a development programme for Samoa before moving to New York as a diplomat at the United Nations.
He then spent five years as Heather Simpson’s right-hand man in Helen Clark’s office from 2002 to 2006, where he was a key figure in the interest-free student loans policy, before becoming an MP in 2008.
The principles of social justice were instilled in him from a young age by his parents - his mother was a schoolteacher, his father an accountant - who were active in the Presbyterian Church.
But while his father, Doug Robertson, was preaching against poverty, he was quietly stealing $120,000 over 10 years from the firm where he worked. He was convicted in 1991 and spent two years in jail.
“It turned my family upside down, left us with no income. I remember having to go get my student allowance and they couldn’t believe that my family’s income had gone from what it was to zero. The evidence I produced was a newspaper clipping,” Robertson told the Herald in an interview in 2011.
He cited those years as another chapter in his political education, eventually leading to the commitments he outlined for himself in his maiden speech.
“The reason I entered the political arena was my belief in social justice,” he said in that speech.
“My desire is to play a part in making my community, city, country, and world a fairer and more equal place, because it is that equality that will drive aspiration, opportunity, and success for all. In my time in this Parliament, it is my commitment that I will work to build an ever better, fairer New Zealand, where we seek to ensure that achieving one’s potential is not just the preserve of the privileged, but possible for all.”
Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery and is a former deputy political editor.
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