You may remember a few weeks back that Grant Robertson chided Peter Williams on Magic Talk when Williams asked him about The Great Reset that is supposedly happening all around the globe. Robertson’s reaction was surprisingly vehement and he accused Williams of expounding conspiracy theories and other nonsense.
Well, we’ve all heard about The Great Reset and, as we have a socialist government, it was not unreasonable to wonder if it was buying into the nonsense being broadcast around the rest of the world. At its very least, The Great Reset is all about life after COVID, and how the world will have changed as a result of it. It is reasonable to expect our Minister of Finance to have some ideas about this; in fact, I would go as far as to say that it is imperative that he does so. But Robertson was so offended at being asked about the subject that he cancelled all future appearances on Magic Talk forthwith. I thought that maybe Williams had struck a nerve, and that Robertson was exposed, but now I realise it was no such thing.
Why do I say that? Because, on Friday, I logged into a webinar from CAANZ (Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand) that was titled Ready to Reset. What is more, the participants were none other than Josh Frydenberg (Australia’s Treasurer) and our very own Grant Robertson.
OK… I admit that I signed up for this because I am a bit low on my compulsory training hours for the current year, and it was free… and I also thought that our readers at The BFD might want to know what Grant really thinks about the world as it will be after COVID, ignoring all conspiracy theories of course. He must have some ideas, and we all waited with bated breath to hear what they are.
The first thing of importance was that the webinar was supposed to be an hour long, but Grant left halfway through because he had a more important meeting to attend and he couldn’t possibly keep Jacinda waiting. Yes, he actually said that.
Personally, I thought this was disgraceful. If you agree to appear at something and sign up what will have been hundreds of people to listen, the very least you can do is to stay the whole time, not duck out half way through. Yes, he had to attend Friday’s cabinet meeting about whether to drop Auckland back to Level 2, but the outcome of that was a foregone conclusion; after 5 days of no new community cases, they would have to come up with some really creative ideas to keep Auckland in lockdown any longer. Maybe that is the reason he had to attend.
So what did I learn during the half hour that Grant deigned to grace us with his presence when he clearly had far more important things to do? I mean no disrespect to the Australian treasurer, but it was the future of New Zealand that is of interest to NZ accountants and obviously, although there was talk about the trans-Tasman bubble, and trade between the two countries, their situation is different and of little relevance to those of us who live and work here.
But never mind that. Grant is too important for such trivialities.
First of all, he managed to get Jacinda’s favourite slogan in; we went ‘hard’n’early‘ when COVID hit. We all know we did no such thing, but remember the preachings from the Ministry of Truth: say it often enough and people will come to believe it. War is peace. Who controls the past controls the future. We went hard and early. Perfect.
But let’s get to the crux of it. I’m sure you are all riveted to your seats waiting to hear what the world is about to look like. So here are a few of the things we can look forward to in our brave new world.
- More people will work from home.
- More people will move to working online.
- We need more infrastructure.
And that’s about it.
The rest (for the small amount of time that he was present) was all about how the government eliminated rough sleeping during the pandemic; how we need to build more houses and how the massive debt that we have accrued cannot be paid down in a hurry because it would cause hardship in the communities. He patted himself on the back by claiming they are already releasing more land for housing by working with councils, iwi and developers. He said they are reviewing their planning and regulatory framework around housing and they are building more infrastructure. The next budget will be all about COVID and also about housing.
In other words, they are doing a lot of talking, holding working groups and planning meetings but they are actually doing nothing. Not a single piece of land has been made available for housing since this talkfest started, and there is no new infrastructure to speak of. The ‘changes to planning regulations’ presumably refers to the rewriting of the RMA, but he carefully omitted the fact that this will not be done for at least three years. And that was it. He then scurried off to meet with Jacinda.
So I now understand why the stories about The Great Reset being bandied around are so offensive to our finance minister. Clearly he hasn’t got a clue what they are all about. If they have nothing to do with ‘hard’n’early‘, double duty or bragging that our unemployment rate is lower than Australia’s, he doesn’t want to know.
With hindsight, it was probably just as well that Grant had to leave halfway through. I had to sit through the whole thing to get the CPD credit, but I was impressed with Robertson’s Australian counterpart, Josh Frydenberg. He seemed to me to have a much better understanding of economics, and he spoke of mistakes that were made in the past and not repeated this time, notably in the 1990s recession when it took years to solve the unemployment issues, particularly for young people. Grant Robertson looked like a rank amateur by comparison, but that’s what happens when all you have is slogans and a leader who communicates well but has no substance.
There is no Great Reset – not in New Zealand anyway. Grant Robertson wouldn’t know what it was if it hit him with a ten foot pole.
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