Skip to content

What Politicians Will Say for Power

Labour’s Hipkins and Otago VC Robertson must be held to account.

Photo by Jametlene Reskp / Unsplash

Robert MacCulloch
Robert MacCulloch is a native of New Zealand and worked at the Reserve Bank of NZ before travelling to the UK to complete a PhD in Economics at Oxford University.

Before the election toward the end of 2023, in September of that year, when Hipkins was PM and Mr Grant Robertson (BA) – now Vice Chancellor of Otago University – were running the show, this is how they reported on the NZ economy.

The Pre-election Economic & Fiscal Update (PREFU) shows no recession, a growing economy, more jobs and wages ahead of inflation. The PREFU released today shows NZ’s economy is turning the corner ... Economy to grow 2.6 per cent on average over forecast period ... Fiscal rules met –return to surplus ... Our economic plan to support NZers dealing with the cost of living while investing in building a stronger, more resilient and inclusive economy is working.

Just over six months later, NZ was experiencing a combination of its deepest and longest economic downturn and recessionary contraction for over 30 years, with less jobs, with none of its fiscal rules having been met and a worsening cost-of-living crisis.

The old joke that economists have predicted nine out of the last six recessions sure don’t apply to the ones working at our Treasury. Together with Hipkins and Robertson, they predicted nine out the past zero booms. Given it takes over six months to a year for nearly every economic policy change to work its way into the numbers and outcomes, the vast majority of the slump this past year is directly attributable to those two men.

How these blokes, in cahoots with Treasury, could have written such nonsense and made such outlandish claims is beyond me. Robertson and Hipkins often reply with the line that the likes of this blog say things with the benefit of hindsight. Really? In mid-2023 I did radio interviews, including with Kerre Woodham on Newstalk ZB, saying, “I don’t know what planet Robertson is living on. It’s an extraordinary thing to say and he knows it’s not true.”

Sure, National have not met many of our expectations. But the idea Hipkins, along with his lobbyists – the mainstream media, unionists and many academics – think they can pull the wool over the eyes of voters and trick them into re-electing Labour in 2026 when everything Hipkins said about the economy just a short while ago has been proven to be so wrong, so off-the-mark, is beyond me.

My reading of the situation is that what Labour’s Hipkins did was so unforgiveable, the economic and social carnage he wrought so long lasting, that he should not even be in contention, whatever National’s faults.

This article was originally published by Down to Earth Kiwi.

Latest