It’s easy to see what you bring to a leadership team, the same calm and composure we saw in the debates over the last little while. That approach served the country pretty well during the 2007-2008 financial crisis, when you made a lot of short-term decisions to keep the books balanced and let us carry on pretty much business as usual. But that was 10 years ago now, it doesn’t seem like we’re in a crisis anymore, and those short-term decisions are starting to catch up with us. So right now, it certainly seems like we need someone with a different skill-set, someone who has a vision for where New Zealand’s story is going.
You’ve been telling us that the best solution to a problem like this is to hire in a skilled migrant, someone experienced and ready to hit the ground running. Perhaps we could get Obama in to take the prime ministers post? But we’ve got a lot of home-grown talent too, so maybe it would be worth it for the country to invest in them and give them a chance in the role? Or, here’s an idea, we could retrain a skilled individual like you to pursue the change in approach. It would be like ‘New Zealanders delivering for New Zealand’—just a touch different to what you’ve been promoting.
Of course, things would slow down just a little bit while the talent got up to speed, but that shouldn’t bother you (from the videos of your runs it’s obvious that you walk a lot of bits yourself, although by the time I’m your age I hope that I’m still running at all). Anyway, where would we be going in such a rush? You’ve been good about solving problems as they come up, but to be honest I’m still a bit shaky on what your vision is for New Zealand’s future.
Again, this isn’t to take away from all the spaghetti and pineapple-topped pizzas that you’ve been delivering for New Zealand over the last few years, we’ve really appreciated those. And to be fair, in the last couple of months you’ve been coming up with a lot of potential solutions, almost like something has driven you to suddenly sit down and look at all the issues that have been accumulating under your watch over the nine years.
Honestly Bill, when it comes down to it I’m not sure that you’re the main character that New Zealand needs in our story at the moment. Maybe you can get a spin off series, like ‘Finance Minister Bill English, Part two: the surprise switch to Labour’. That would be pretty good for everyone.
- Matthew Cowan
