The former finance minister and deputy prime minister, Mr Robertson is poised to return home to be the vice-chancellor of the University of Otago — but not before making a call for greater tolerance of people’s differences, and pleading for cross-party co-operation to reform taxation.
"New Zealand’s tax system is unfair and unbalanced," he said.
"We are almost alone in the OECD in terms of not properly taxing assets and wealth in some form. Our current system entrenches inequality.
"It is not my place any longer to say specifically what the answer is here, but I do know that the answers are out there.
"And this is not a message for my party alone. The truth is that we need some political consensus about this to ensure we get it right and it sticks."
The Covid-19 pandemic, the associated lockdown and the unprecedented emergency measures which Mr Robertson was instrumental in bringing about figured largely in his speech.
"I was looking at some dire forecasts. Globally, financial markets were in freefall. We were told that bond markets could dry up. Treasury were forecasting 13.5% unemployment and mass business failures. We were heading into unknown territory at every turn," he said.
However, policies like the wage subsidy scheme saved an estimated 1.8 million jobs, unemployment barely crested 5% and New Zealand’s credit rating actually went up, Mr Robertson said.
"These great results of course pale into insignificance in the face of the one statistic that matters — the number of lives saved. On that measure New Zealand stood head and shoulders above others, with lower death rates than in normal years.
"Those statistics are real people. We know exactly who they were if we look around the rest of the world. They were our grandparents, neighbours, kaumatua and kuia. To coin a phrase, they are us. Saving those lives trumps any statistics or any hate on social media."
Mr Robertson also dwelled on his time as sport and recreation minister, a role in which he initiated several athlete welfare initiatives and tried to increase the number of women both playing and administering sport.
"I have loved sport for as long as I can remember. I was never very good at it," he said.
"My own personal sporting peak was being the ballboy for the All Blacks v British Lions test at Carisbrook in Dunedin in 1983, running along beside Matt Doocey’s father who was the touch judge that day.
"It rained, sleeted and huge pools of water appeared on the field. We were given giant oilskin parkas to wear.
"I looked like a rotund, bespectacled, drenched ewok. It was only ever going to be downhill from there, but I believe in sport as a way to strengthen our communities and our wellbeing."
Wellbeing was a focus of Mr Robertson’s speech, especially as he canvassed his time as finance minister and the introduction of the wellbeing framework into budget documents, an approach he asked future finance ministers to continue. He said his pinnacle Budget was 2021, when benefit cuts from the 1990s were reversed, and an initiative closer to home was instigated.
"I think of Jim Kelly, rest his soul, and the workers at Hillside in Dunedin, a few hundred metres from where I grew up, beaming from ear to ear when we brought back manufacturing to South Dunedin," he said.
"We now report at each Budget on indicators of child poverty, climate change and overall wellbeing. We continue to report on how we are tracking fiscally but to do so myopically risks forgetting the very reason we are here.
"The economy is not an end in itself it is a means to an end."
Mr Robertson paid heartfelt tribute to his parents, partner Alf and extended whanau.
"To my late father Doug, I am pleased that you got to see your son enter this place. I know it made you proud because you told everyone, all the time.
"To my mum. Weaved through this speech has been my admiration for strong women. The strongest of them all is my mum.
"It’s your values, your love and your spirit that I have spent a lifetime trying to match.
"I am not sure what we will talk about each week without me being here, but at least we can both complain about the government now."
