Must everyone really go?
A contagion of big-name departures has swept New Zealand across 24 heady hours. It began with Adrian Orr, whose resignation as governor of the Reserve Bank came yesterday afternoon, and remains shrouded in mystery with a spooky soundtrack. Speculated reasons for the sudden farewell range from a dispute with senior ministers over the institution’s size and scope to Orr’s insistence that he change his signature on bank notes into an elaborate symbol and be referred to in meetings as the Governor Formerly Known As Adrian.
The gubernatorial goodbye was still being processed when a diplomatic detonation echoed all the way from St James’s Square, London. Phil Goff, once the leader of the Labour Party and after that the mayor of Auckland, is the New Zealand high commissioner to the UK. But not for much longer. Video emerged in which Goff popped up from the audience at a Chatham House event with a question – in fact maybe it was more of a statement than a question – in which he more or less suggested to the Finnish foreign minister that Donald Trump (a stable genius) is more a Neville Chamberlain than he is a Winston Churchill.
New Zealand’s foreign minister, Winston Peters, took swift action when the remarks were raised with him by a reporter. Analysts say that any suggestion the decision might be motivated by a popular new viral trend sweeping the world in which business titans and statespeople whimper at the feet of Donald Trump in prostrate desperation to win his favour and not his tariffs, or by not liking Phil Goff, are spurious and frankly irresponsible speculation.
It is possible that Goff was confused and he thought the event at the thinktank Chatham House took place under Chatham House rules, but it was not Chatham House rules, it was just at Chatham House. Either way, it is now a cruel truth of history that his diplomatic career has come to an end with the Finnish.
The plague of big beast exit continued this afternoon with the announced resignation of Greg Foran as chief executive of Air New Zealand. According to fabricated sources, the decision was made owing to a combination of factors including heaps of the airline’s planes being broken, domestic airfares being a zillion dollars each and leaping at the chance to slip down the inflatable slide while everyone is freaking out about what happened with Orr and Goff.
While many expect that the logical next step after Air New Zealand for Foran is to become prime minister, other possibilities include becoming the high commissioner to the UK or Reserve Bank governor.
Richard Prebble resigned, too, but from the Waitangi Tribunal where he’d not really even begun. The chief executive of the low-carbon milk company Karl Gradon has also resigned but he is only being mentioned to pad out this story. Oh, and the sphinx-like, Very Centrist Canadian billionaire who suddenly bought a shitload of shares in the company that runs the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB this afternoon roared from the clifftop that all the board directors of NZME should resign, so there’s that. Speculation that he is motivated entirely by a wish to see the Sideswipe column reinstated are unproven.
While some commentators are describing the wave of departures as an aftershock of the post-Covid Great Resignation or an unremarkable coincidence that it’s weird to froth over, sharper minds have attributed the spate of exits to the rise of digital nomads and the preternaturally powerful new Tourism NZ campaign slogan launched by the prime minister last month, “Everyone must go.” Bring back 100% Pure.
