Power swerve

Former finance minister Grant Robertson's memoir goes full circle, from his political baptism in Dunedin through the toll of the Covid years to his return to Otago.

- RUSSELL BROWN

The last time the Listener spoke to Grant Robertson, he was stiff as a board. The editorial brief had been to get some colour, which was not an unreasonable expectation given his customary ebullience. But Robertson, minders in tow, was tense and guarded. The then-deputy prime minister and finance minister had reason to be. The day of the interview, January 17, 2022, was supposed to have been the beginning of the end of the fraught MIQ (Managed Isolation and Quarantine) system. But three weeks earlier, as Covid’s Omicron variant raged outside our borders, the great opening-up had been postponed. Furthermore, inflation was up, globally, and the Reserve Bank had begun to act. Robertson remarked that a stomach complaint had, among other things, limited his tolerance for beer.

According to his newly released autobiography, Anything Could Happen, things only got worse. By the beginning of 2023, Robertson, never exactly a picture of health and fitness, was in bad shape. He had developed a condition called esophagitis that meant he struggled to swallow. Worse, a cortisone injection to ease the pain of a compressed disc in his spine temporarily paralysed him.

The shock of that event, and the knowledge that Jacinda Ardern was considering resigning as prime minister - at that point strictly a private conversation between the pair of them - produced a panic attack that caused him to shake uncontrollably. When the bad thoughts lingered, he consulted a doctor, who diagnosed “extreme stress, compounded by the trauma of the temporary paralysis”. Then he consulted a therapist “who would help me through my remaining time in Parliament”.

On a lunchbreak from his post-politics role as vice-chancellor of the University of Otago, Robertson, now 53, is clearly not only healthier, but happier.