Grant Robertson
Grant Robertson hopes the promise of no recession and falling inflation is what voters really, really want to hear right now, more than grandiose new policies. But he’s keeps headroom for election promises
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Jacinda Ardern’s has announced her resignation ahead of this year’s election. So how will New Zealand’s 40th Prime Minister be remembered? What’s her legacy amidst years of crisis?
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While the new fiscal rules may not be contentious, what they mean for macroeconomic management is not explained.
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Join the dots from 1991 to election night 2020 to today… This is the day that Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern entered politics to deliver
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Labour’s come out as a lamb on tax policy but a lion on negotiations. Is its tentative tax policy really a bottomline? Has it given up on tax? And what does it mean for the Greens?
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With popular support, a willing partner and many New Zealanders facing unemployment, now is the time for Labour to overhaul welfare. Instead, it has divided beneficiaries into the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’
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Today’s Budget 2020 was nothing like the one Finance Minister Grant Robertson was expecting to give two months ago. It’s a life-support budget, which in any normal year would guarantee an election loss, but instead could help shore up a Labour win
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As we come out of lockdown. so does the economic freeze ray holding our economy in place wear off. Budget 2020 will be all about finding ways to minimise the brutal economic damage that is only just beginning
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The government’s road bings is clever politics but a slap in the face for those genuinely concerned about the twin crises of climate and inequality. There’s more money to spend and here’s how to spend it…
Read MoreWhy roading lays down a path to Election 2020 for the coalition government and Labour in particular and puts National on bumpy ground
Read MoreLabour is obsessed with not being seen as a ‘tax and spend’ party, but its economic caution means social issues are dominating its agenda and it risks falling into another trap with the election little more than a year away
Read MoreYou don't have to believe the conspiracy theories to see that Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf is in serious trouble. A new inquiry will have to uncover something yet unknown to excuse the three strikes he committed last week
Read MoreThe spadework has been done and the Labour-led government now has to decide whether it can afford to walk through the door labelled 'Capital Gaints Tax'... and they need to know who will follow
Read MoreWas it National-lite or is it a new direction?
Read MoreTwo weeks out, Labour is positioning its first budget as a noble quest story in which it saves the nation from under-funding whilst also being super-responsible. But with questions about how it will try match its spending to its rhetoric, it feels more like a plot-twisting mystery
Read MoreIncumbency is the super power every politician craves, yet this oddly muted new Labour-led government doesn't seem to have figured out how to use it yet. This week's mini-Budget is now crucial if it wants to position itself as a truly transformational government
Read MoreHousing remains the government's biggest weakness and so National is redoubling its efforts. No, not to build houses, but to contain the political damage
Read MoreIt's a big day of transitioning for Labour, as it clears the decks for it's 'small targets' strategy. But one particular new policy caught my eye
Read MoreI stand alongside anyone arguing for freedom of speech. But sometimes also against them. And alongside the other side too, sometimes. Such is walking the moral tightrope
Read MoreThere is no transferring blame away from the perpetrators of this crime.
Moderate muslims are not to blame.
It is not the disastrous invasion of Iraq, even if this gave jihadists a foothold. France, like New Zealand, didn’t support that war.