NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Business

Covid 19 coronavirus: Hamish Rutherford: Nation building should be the start of a move to unity

Hamish Rutherford
By Hamish Rutherford
Wellington Business Editor·NZ Herald·
31 Mar, 2020 04:45 AM6 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced a loan of up to $900 million to bail out Air New Zealand. Video / Derek Cheng

OPINION:
Grant Robertson's handling of the Covid-19 crisis has been good so far.

The fullness of time will judge whether the warnings it heard were sufficiently strong to warrant faster action by the Government, but no administration in our history has faced such a decision: whether to shut down the country.

Robertson not only has to help make it, but deal with the consequences. Former Finance Ministers Sir Michael Cullen and Sir Bill English never faced such a crisis of confidence.

So far Robertson has managed to fire several billion into the economy within a few days; tens, if not hundreds of thousands of jobs have been saved for the moment at least.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Finance minister Grant Robertson speaks during COVID-19 financial response package announcement at Parliament on March 17. Photo / Getty Images.
Finance minister Grant Robertson speaks during COVID-19 financial response package announcement at Parliament on March 17. Photo / Getty Images.

More help to prop up the economy is looming. Loans, investment promises. "Whatever it takes," Robertson has said.

READ MORE:
• Covid 19 coronavirus: Government talking to airports - Grant Robertson
• Covid 19 coronavirus: Auckland Airport - The $7b company reluctant to talk about solvency
• National's Paul Goldsmith says wage subsidies to keep businesses afloat should be focus
• As credit markets panic, the Government is poised to make a stunning move into lending

His idea of a forward looking project to hopefully fast track infrastructure investment and make plans for what a future New Zealand economy might look like, are excellent.

It is also right to delegate the task, given his day to day challenges are so vast.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

But the idea of giving the job of leading this endeavour to Phil Twyford and Shane Jones is simply laughable. It must be cut off at the knees at once.

The age of Covid-19 already feels like it has been going on for months, but Robertson cannot believe New Zealand has such a short memory.

Discover more

New Zealand|crime

Man crossed town 'to see a mate'

30 Mar 06:09 PM
Construction

House-building approvals break 45-year record, coronavirus impact still unclear

30 Mar 10:16 PM
New Zealand

SkyPath could be built in post-lockdown economy

30 Mar 09:51 PM

Twyford has a future in politics if he wants it, but is regarded as being dangerously unable to grasp detail.

Let him do some blue sky thinking for long-term projects if he wants to, reforming energy, imagining we had better housing stock or something else. Labour can use whatever he comes up with in the future if they choose.

His handling of Kiwibuild and Auckland's rail something-or-other means his time handling actual projects must be over. Certainly in a time of national crisis.

Shane Jones, Phil Twyford, Grant Robertson and Winston Peters standing on a KiwiRail train at Wellington Railways Station in 2019. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
Shane Jones, Phil Twyford, Grant Robertson and Winston Peters standing on a KiwiRail train at Wellington Railways Station in 2019. Photo / Mark Mitchell.

For Jones the issue is different. It is not that no good at all will come from the Provincial Growth Fund. Some money is being spent and Jones finds people to point at and say he has created jobs.

But whatever finally emerges from the endeavour, it will be a dark chapter in New Zealand's vigilance of probity.

Officials are said to have had to chase him desperately trying to stop him from promising things on the fly. Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials have had to warn him more than once about the rules which could flout international standards.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Jones himself said two years ago that he wanted to be able to personally select "****kickers" to run Government departments at his behest. The neutrality of the public service is something we should guard jealously, especially when the name of today's game is to spend as much as we can.

NeedToKnow3
NeedToKnow3

Now is the time for Parliament to move towards unity.

We are surely not having an election this year. Even if we get on top of the response swiftly, it will inevitably have a long tail which makes some sort of unity structure inevitable.

The Coalition cannot govern without a mandate so why doesn't Robertson put the process on the front foot?

Give control of the drafting of any nation-building projects to National, knowing well that Robertson has final call on anything and everything they suggest. The Finance Minister writes the cheques, it is that simple.

Such an arrangement would cede significant influence to the Opposition, possibly without needing to allow them into Cabinet.

Both sides would have an interest in finding agreement and both would then be tied to the projects, whatever they were.

Even before the crisis began to unfold, Labour and National, ideally, would have already formed some agreement on rail in Auckland.

There will no doubt be countless other projects around the country where agreement could be found and then enabling legislation would happen, from Tiwai to a second Mt Victoria tunnel to a motorway from Auckland to Whangārei.

The case for funding clean energy projects and subsidies for electrification of transport could be made at the same as the Government decides whether it really doesn't want any more natural gas to be discovered.

The Opposition could form a Cabinet in waiting and try to look constructive, while its MPs wish and hope (and in many cases, pray) that Jacinda Ardern's popularity will eventually be affected by gravity. In some ways for National not having an election this year could be a blessing.

However you feel about the Christchurch rebuild, no one know the balance between getting things right and just getting on with it like Gerry Brownlee. His experience should be called upon.

Paul Goldsmith could be tested at another level, as could former Fonterra executive Todd Muller.

For Simon Bridges it could mean his final, highest role would not be Opposition leader with low personal approval rating, but some sort of temporary recovery tsar.

Surely Bridges, who appeared to relish the role of Transport Minister, knows that his speech in reply to Robertson's stimulus package on March 16 put his leadership on thin ice, again.

It may not survive a period when his MPs are, apart from everything else, bored.

Labour has no right to govern for much longer without putting the issue of how New Zealand is governed to the people, or forming an agreement with National.

New Zealand could also do with some unity and given that the National Party continues to enjoy significant support, surely bringing them into the tent cannot start too soon.

• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website

Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from Business

Premium
Media Insider

TV shake-up: Sky TV set to lose channels - viewers 'don't like repeats'

05 Jul 09:46 AM
Business|companies

Entrepreneur Bowen Pan on why he returned to NZ

Premium
Business|companies

Silicon Valley to NZ: Kiwi Facebook Marketplace inventor is back home to give back

05 Jul 12:00 AM

Audi offers a sporty spin on city driving with the A3 Sportback and S3 Sportback

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Business

Premium
TV shake-up: Sky TV set to lose channels - viewers 'don't like repeats'

TV shake-up: Sky TV set to lose channels - viewers 'don't like repeats'

05 Jul 09:46 AM

A major global deal is coming to an end for Sky. What does that mean for customers?

Entrepreneur Bowen Pan on why he returned to NZ

Entrepreneur Bowen Pan on why he returned to NZ

Premium
Silicon Valley to NZ: Kiwi Facebook Marketplace inventor is back home to give back

Silicon Valley to NZ: Kiwi Facebook Marketplace inventor is back home to give back

05 Jul 12:00 AM
Premium
Bruce Cotterill: Is our bloated bureaucracy hindering economic growth?

Bruce Cotterill: Is our bloated bureaucracy hindering economic growth?

04 Jul 11:00 PM
Gold demand soars amid global turmoil
sponsored

Gold demand soars amid global turmoil

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP