An old job for the ‘new’ Treasury?

The ghosts of Treasury secretaries past will be watching as Grant Robertson delivers next Thursday's budget. (Image: NZME)

Pattrick Smellie

Sat, 14 May 2022

For the last decade – really since the global financial crisis – New Zealand has ridden a wave of global economic growth.That growth was fuelled primarily by the most extended period of the lowest interest rates in history and when it looked as if covid-19 could plunge the world into recession, governments everywhere discovered they could make money out of thin air.In those wild days just before the level 4 lockdown in March 2020, I well remember bumping into a senior Treasury official in a sandwich shop on Lambton Quay.With the sli...

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