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There are several questions you can ask about Grant Robertson bailing now.\xa0

1) Why not on the night, or shortly afterwards?\xa0

He seemed to give some indication post-election he would hang around for a while to see how things were travelling.\xa0

But the clue was there last year when he pretended that you couldn\u2019t be a Finance Minister and an electorate MP at the same time, despite having been a Finance Minister and an electorate MP at the same time.\xa0

I've watched him this year at question time. He has fired a couple of probing inquiries to Nicola Willis but the gusto, the wit, the energy, and the joie de vivre is well and truly gone.\xa0

In fact, the air has gone out of the tyres of the whole party. They look flat, bored, bewildered and with eight press releases so far and a poll that has Chris Hipkins dropping 10% in preferred Prime Minister.\xa0

Some of which is to be expected. They got hammered, they got rejected, and they got a message over an approach to life I suspect came as a genuine shock to some of the more idealistic of them.\xa0

2) Who wrecked the economy the most? Muldoon or Robertson?\xa0

As much as National are playing to the crowd over what they have been left with, it's actually real. In some cases, it's dangerous.\xa0

This country is in a number of fiscal areas in a shocking state and that is on the former Finance Minister.\xa0

His co-conspirator, Ms Ardern, you will note is long gone, never to be questioned again. So, in that respect I suppose you could say he deserves an element of credit for hanging around the place to watch the outworkings of the vote.\xa0

But politicians are measured in legacy and records.\xa0

The ultimate aim is to leave the place better off than when you found it. The reality for Grant Robertson is so far from that it is tragic.\xa0

He will defend at least some of it because some of it is ideological. But whether it's pipes, trains, ferries or debt welfare the numbers don\u2019t lie and the numbers are desperate.\xa0

He softened it with his wit, humour, and personality. As I have said many times, I always liked him, and I enjoyed talking to him.\xa0

But let the record show the Grant Robertson era was as ruinous as any you will ever see.\xa0

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