Perspective with Heather duPlessis-Allan: The GDP numbers are the fault of the Reserve Bank, not Nicola Willis

How is it that we are having a conversation today about whether Nicola Willis needs to quit her portfolio because of yesterday's shock GDP number?

This is crazy.  What happened yesterday is not Nicola Willis's fault. It is the Reserve Bank's fault. It is not a matter of opinion. It is a fact.

The Reserve Bank ratcheted up the official cash rate to slow down the economy and engineer a recession, to quote Adrian Orr. It's what he wanted to do. It is what he has actually done successfully.

We now have had an enormous recession, and we are struggling to come out of that. That is not Nicola Willis's fault.

Now, sure, I can lay some blame at Nicola Willis's feet. I can blame Nicola Willis for not doing enough to fix the state of the government's books.Probably not doing enough to get rundown places like Auckland Central going again, but that GDP number, that is fair and square, largely the Reserve Bank's problem, so she should not quit over what happened yesterday.

However, I am prepared to admit that the fact that this discussion is even happening does speak to the enormous political pressure that she is under at the moment, because it is enormous. She is under a lot of political pressure. She is very much playing at a political disadvantage because a lot has gone wrong for her this year. Buttergate was all Nicola Willis pulling in Miles Hurrell for a chat, Gavin the cameras run after him. She created that.

She has only just managed to save herself from being accused of being all talk and no action over the supermarkets, redeemed with a Hail Mary at the last minute. 

And for all the criticism that she lobbed Grant Robertson for spending too much, she spends more than him every single budget, and here we are two years into this administration, still waiting for their big plan as to how we turn this economy around.

That is as finance minister and economic growth minister, her job, but she doesn't need to quit over what happened yesterday.

Look, the bar for any minister to quit is very high, but for a finance minister, even more so.

Just have a look at how badly Rachel Reeves in the UK is stuffing things up and crying in public.

She is still in her job.

Nicola Willis is nowhere near that, mainly because the GDP figure out yesterday is not her fault.

And the fact that this is actually a discussion is somewhat mind-blowing.

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