Jacinda Ardern – Great Prime Minister of the 21st Century

Jacinda decided to aim for the PM position finally for the

2017 election. I had email discussions with her and told her
she should go for the PM job. I wrote to her that my research
had shown Andrew Little was not promising as a prospect.
The reason most interviewed people gave was that he was
always critical and not constructive. The Kiwi mindset is anti-
criticism – look at the positives always.
I mentioned to Jacinda in an email that if her political party
was going to go with Andrew as the leader they should focus
on the team, to broaden the appeal of the Party. When I
again repeated the call for her to put her hat in the ring, even
though her popularity as preferred leader was only around
9% at the time, she reflected back to me my earlier
suggestion that the party should focus on the team.
When Jacinda won the 2017 election, securing only 34% of
the vote, she was able to stitch together a majority coalition.
National, the conservative party, was stunned. Bill English,
the leader of National, stood there like a stunned mullet. He
could not comprehend what had happened. John Key had
earlier waxed self-congratulatory to the media about the
correctness of his decision to step aside and hand over the
reins to Bill. He was confident National had won.
National was caught flat-footed. Blindsided. New Zealand was
now repeating its Helen Clarkean arrangement with Winston
Peters except instead of being the gallivanting Foreign
Minister around the world, he had a short stint as PM thrown
into the deal. With this triumvirate of politically nuanced
parties, we entered the first round of a new government.
The first wish list I had from Jacinda was some investment in
CBD services for the homeless. I wrote incessantly to Jacinda
now via her PA to please do something. I would arrive at my
CBD college where I taught with bodies – sometimes half
naked sleeping on the landing. I asked her to please help as it
made New Zealand look like a slum and that we treated our
cars better by providing them with sheltered carparks. To her
credit, Jacinda’s PA had informed me that an extra 50 million
dollars had been allocated to reducing this social malaise.
Over the next few weeks, I saw a visible reduction in the
homeless hordes in the CBD. This was heartening to see.
Some humanity had come to politics.
When COVID struck, New Zealand struggled. Labor lacked the
knowledge and skills to deal with the pandemic. Tourists
were allowed in on a trust basis but to isolate, but this was
wishful thinking. I saw first-hand tourists wandering around
the city with masks on but no one was isolating. Even her
health minister resigned due to the inability to isolate and it
was too much for him. He appeared out of his depth.
Along with another work colleague, we were hoping the
Jacinda would just shut down the country. All the other staff
disagreed. Finally the decision was made to isolate and we
cheered with jubilation. Jacinda did what most more
experienced governments did not do. She listened to her
health officials. After all, is she an epidemiologist? This action
saved countless lives. However, I did continually write to the
new health minister, with whom I had had a number of years
of correspondence about education, to not use CBD hotels
for isolation points. I had studied a little of epidemiology at
university and knew that one does not create quarantine
facilities in the middle of your most populous city in the
country. Despite repeated emails, the policy never changed.
It was only several years later, that the Queensland
government recognised this and started building isolation
units outside of the city. Auckland suffered a number of
lockdowns simply because it did not adhere to sensible
lockdown policies. It cost more to clean up the mess of a
lockdown than it did to create proper quarantine facilities.
Another issue I raised with Jacinda was her open cheque
book policy for the less fortunate in economic status. I kept
sending emails pointing out many examples from the past –
USA in the 1960’s to Chile with their highly targeted
government programs in the 1990’s and how they have failed
miserably. Many took advantage of the housing crisis and
there was little accountability by people who did not pay
their rent and ended up in motels eating pizza funded by the
government. Substandard housing was leased at exorbitant
prices for those without housing without the proper checks.
Education also slipped. I went around the country delivering
international tests to many schools and noticed the grinding
poverty of students and how standards had slipped
considerably. One primary school student did not even know
his birthday. Clearly there was a great gulf of sound policies
to address this systemic apathy and poverty at certain
geographic areas. I repeated my mantra that simply throwing
taxpayer money at the problem was not enough. Some more
fundamental changes were needed.
Jacinda went back to the polls and won a resounding victory.
She is the only Prime Minister in New Zealand history to have
won an outright victory to govern under the MMP system.
This is quite an achievement. But in the end, her popularity
waned, and sadly, like the fate of most politicians she lost
ground and favour with the voters and resigned her position.
New Zealanders should thank Jacinda for saving many lives
with the lockdowns. She listened to the health officials
putting people’s lives above economic concerns. You can
rebuild an economy, but you cannot bring back the dead.
Initially the pandemic response was haphazard and lacked
the thoroughness that is needed but, in the end, coordinating
disparate segments of society from workplace situations to
educational and international and domestic travel policies it
was a big ask. Despite the criticisms from National who
described Labor as building the plane as they flew – Jacinda
did a good job. National had left little policy structure to deal
with a pandemic, it was new ground for many countries
which had not had to deal with SARS.
Jacinda was the right person for that difficult time we faced
globally. It’s a pity that she could not apply her talent
universally across the full gamut of issues that needed
addressing. But there is so much one individual can do and
she did reinstate among voters some faith in politicians as
leaders.