“Her eyes widened, she took a deep breath and said, ‘Well, that is a lot.’”
In the preceding weeks and months, Robertson had gone through both anguish and agony. It was an accumulation of exhaustion and stress from managing Covid-19, of physical vulnerability from a bad back and a fear of paralysis, and anxiety from trying to decide whether he wanted to take over from Ardern.
She had confided in Robertson in August of 2022 that she was not committed to seeking a third term. He was still discussing it with his partner, Alf Kaiwai, and was not committed to taking over.
In November, an old back injury of Robertson’s flared up, and he was diagnosed with a ruptured disc. It was so bad that just before Christmas, he had a cortisone spinal injection in a private hospital for pain relief. But the anaesthetic had been put in the wrong place, and when he went to leave, he couldn’t get up. He had lost all feeling below his waist. The anaesthetic wore off by the next morning, and he was able to walk out of the hospital okay.
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But as Robertson put it, he was starting to feel anxiety for the first time in his life with the decision over the leadership to be made, the stress of the paralysis, inability to sleep and a condition called esophagitis, meaning he couldn’t swallow.
It came to a head just after the New Year when he was in Dunedin to see family. He was driving at the time and had a fear that the paralysis was returning, and he would not be able to apply the brakes. That is when he called an emergency doctor and was told to come in right away.
He was taken in the side entrance to the after-hours clinic and underwent a few tests before the doctor sat him down.
“He said what I knew to be true but had not been able to accept: ‘You are suffering from extreme stress, compounded by the trauma of the temporary paralysis.’ He gave me some anti-anxiety medication and told me that I really needed to talk to someone.”
He went back to his hotel but decided against taking the medication before he went to bed. He woke up at 2 am, shaking uncontrollably in what he believes was a panic attack. He flew back to Wellington, fearful he would have another attack on the plane, collapsed into Alf’s arms, and asked Ayesha Verrall for the name of a counsellor.
Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson with the rest of the cabinet at their first meeting after the 2020 election. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Robertson still had not made a final decision about the job of Prime Minister. He didn’t want it, but was feeling a strong sense of obligation, knowing that others would expect him to step up.
One night, Alf had said to him: “Even though you don’t want to do this, you’re not going to be able to say no, are you?”
“It hit me like a thunderbolt,” wrote Robertson. “For the first time in my political career, I needed to put myself and Alf and my health first.
“I was not going to be able to do the role justice when I was doing it out of a sense of obligation and was mentally and physically exhausted.”
Much of the focus of anti-government protests on the Covid-19 response had been on Jacinda Ardern. But Robertson was also on the receiving end of a lot of it, too.
Robertson details incidents that reveal fears he had for his own safety over the response to Covid-19, which included lockdowns and mandates to be vaccinated in particular jobs, such as health and education.
The first was at the end of 2020 when he and Alf were having brunch in Christchurch with Cabinet colleague Megan Woods. A fellow diner came up and started and started asking questions such as whether he had heard of The Great Reset, which he had not, Agenda 30 and the World Economic Forum.
“He kept going, getting angrier and angrier. I can still picture his eyes blazing. We got up and left.”
They headed on to Dunedin and were in town with friends when an even more aggressive young man made a beeline for Robertson, “ranting and raving about 5G, the Pfizer vaccine we had recently purchased and the Chinese Communist Party”.
The young man continued to follow Robertson’s group and then grabbed him by the shoulder. At that point, Alf pushed the pursuer, who stumbled and fell over.
By 2022, a few months after the occupation of Parliament grounds by protesters, the incidents were more serious.
He was on a post-Budget roadshow in Dannevirke with the local MP, Kieran McAnulty, when things turned bad at a public meeting. About 30 Covid conspiracy protesters had interjected through the presentation, he said. The first question was what role Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum had in writing the Budget.
“It went downhill from there…I eventually had to cut the event short.
“The protestors pursued me as I went to leave. The small number of police officers who were present managed to get between me and the mob. I had made it to the local council offices when one young guy yelled, ‘I’m going to get you, you fucking faggot.’”
Other events in the electorate had to be cancelled.
A month later, he received similar treatment in Whangārei, where protesters were disruptive and threatening enough for Robertson to be bundled into an unmarked police car.
At the end of the day, protestors had blocked the entrance to Whangārei Airport and the cops drove him on to the tarmac.“As I waited in my car, I could hear the megaphone-toting protestors’ abuse: I was a ‘pervert and paedophile’ who ‘deserved to die’.
“The danger was real – and the stress that went with it was enormous. I was mentally and physically exhausted from the crises of the past few years, and was struggling to find the joy in the job that meant so much to me.”
The coalition relationship between NZ First and Labour could swing from cohesive to fractured in a single day, says Grant Robertson. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The book also sets out some of the strains that occurred in the coalition Government with New Zealand First, led by Winston Peters, before Covid-19 arrived in 2020.
“The relationship could swing from fractured to cohesive and back again on a daily basis,” writes Robertson.
Ministers would often believe they had sign-off from New Zealand First for a policy, only to find it had to be re-litigated.
“I came to the view that Winston hated making decisions. The long weeks he had put New Zealand through when forming MMP governments seemed to me to be reflective of a person who was incredibly nervous about putting his penny down.”
Robertson said he sat next to Peters at most Cabinet meetings.
“I could not always tell if he had read the papers. But some days, it seemed to me at least, if he was feeling curmudgeonly or tired or he needed a smoke, he could seize on a minor point and derail a paper.”
At the start of 2020, at an announcement of the NZ Upgrade Programme, Ardern, Peters and Green co-leader James Shaw were meant to have a joint standup but held three separate ones.
“It was obvious we were only papering over the cracks in the Government.”
The book canvasses his whole life, not just governing, including his parents’ involvement in the church, the move from Hastings to Dunedin, his school years and student activism and love of music and sport.
He talks about dealing with being gay, the move to Wellington, working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, falling in love with Alf, working for MFAT at the United Nations, working for cabinet minister Marian Hobbs, former Prime Minister Helen Clark and her chief of staff, Heather Simpson.
And all that was before dealing with being in Opposition for nine long years, and contesting the Labour Party leadership twice.
Grant Robertson with his mother Yvonne at Labour’s conference in Whanganui in 2019.
Robertson has always been a superb political communicator, and he has applied that skill to his own fascinating life story.
It provides a clear portrait of his important political relationship with Jacinda Ardern and his complex family relationships, particularly with his adored mother.
One of Robertson’s most traumatic life events occurred when he was in his second year at Otago University, having moved out of home to go flatting on Castle St. His distraught mother arrived at his flat to tell him his father, an accountant, had been arrested for theft as a servant.
Robertson had the task of finding his two other brothers to tell them, and they headed home.
“It was a surreal scene. Dad was in the laundry, taking clothes out of the washing machine to transfer to the dryer. It could have been any day at all.
“I rushed into the room and gave him a hug. He shook with his sobbing but could not say anything. He did not really say much that moment on, shutting down on what he had actually done.”
He pleaded guilty to stealing $120,000 over 10 years and was sentenced to two years in prison.
Robertson says that over the next 18 months, much of his life revolved around visiting his father at least once and sometimes twice a week – and sometimes by way of a drive-by in one of the family’s second-hand cars.
“On Saturdays and Sundays, I worked in the fruit and veggie department at the New World supermarket in South Dunedin, as I had done since school days.
“My route to work took me past the prison. Dad knew the timing of the trip and would look out of the window for me. As he saw the car approach, he would reach his hand through the bars and second-level window and wave. I would toot the horn – and start to cry.”
Robertson, now aged 53, is back living in Dunedin as Vice-Chancellor of Otago University.
“Anything Could Happen” by Grant Robertson is published by Allen & Unwin. RRP $39.99
Audrey Young is the NZ Herald’s senior political correspondent. She was Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards in 2023, 2020 and 2018. She was political editor from 2003 to 2021.
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