So, once again, in a Matt Hancock-type revelation we learn that during the Covid years the Government considered handing us all $5,000.

$5,000 for everyone. It's like Oprah: "you get a car, you get a car, you get $5000".

They considered cutting GST for a couple of weeks, like a GST sale.

As we sit here in what almost certainly is a recession, given last week’s -0.6% number, what they were trying to do was stave off a recession.

Whoops.

They thought the way to stave off a recession was to close the borders, and in doing so, strangle the economy but flood it with cash. Cash they never had anyway.

Another part of the plan was to do it Prezzy card style. The only thing that stopped them was they couldn't get the plastic in from China quick enough. Think about that.

New Zealand, the eco-warriors in the middle of our nuclear moment, changing the world for the better through well thought-out climate policy, wanted to import tonnes of good old Chinese plastic to toss money we didn’t have at a country closed down.

Is that comedy or tragedy? Or maybe a bit of both.

The more we learn, the more Matt Hancock-ish it is.

All this came about because despite what the Reserve Bank was doing, printing money to the tune of $100 billion and handing it to banks to throw at us anyway they wanted, the fear was that wouldn’t be enough.

Once again, given the state of the economy we sit in this morning, can you imagine how much worse it would be today if these idiots had actually gone ahead with it?

What was needed, and this is perhaps the most important lesson out of Covid and general crisis management, was experience and expertise and, above all, great leadership. And they didn’t have it.

We have amateurs from unions and university and people who had barely any experience of Government.

Sure, Jacinda was good with hugs and stuffed animals, but that was window dressing - literally. The intellectual muscle was never there.

No, in the end it didn’t happen.

But it clearly was a live option. The danger of buffoons running the place cannot be overstated.

We were a bad idea away from catastrophe - and the other bad ideas landed us in the current mess.

I suppose the ironic good news is it could have been worse.

But what a gobsmackingly horrifying thought that is.