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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Jacinda Ardern’s decision to resign as the Prime Minister of New Zealand, shocked her country, and the world.

She had seemed almost universally beloved. And the young, empathetic, and energetic politician was the most globally famous prime minister New Zealand has ever had.

So what was it that left Ardern without the desire to continue? And does she leave her country with the kind of meaningful change she set out to make?

Today, freelance correspondent and author of a forthcoming book about the Christchurch attack, Charlotte Graham-McLay, on what really motivated Jacinda Ardern, and the moment of political reckoning New Zealand now finds itself in.

It’s Wednesday, January 25.

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RUBY:

Charlotte, there is a single moment that will probably define Jacinda Ardern's Prime Ministership for people, and that is her response to the Christchurch shooting. That was one of the most painful chapters in modern New Zealand — and Australian — history and it's this moment that ended up taking on a lot of symbolic power around the world. So could we go back to that time and unpack exactly what it was that Jacinda Ardern did in the immediate aftermath of the attack?

CHARLOTTE:

Yeah, I think it's a really great microcosm of the ‘Ardern effect’, both domestically and overseas. Because watching it as a New Zealander, from New Zealand, up close, you know, covering that very first and second press conference the night it happened, when she was the one providing the first basic information that we knew about what happened.

Archival tape – Jacinda Ardern:

“We believe that 40 people have lost their lives in this act of extreme violence. Ten have died at Linwood Avenue mosque, three of which were outside the mosque itself. A further 30 have been killed at Deans Avenue mosque.”

CHARLOTTE:

Just watching a prime minister perform in a way that seemed intuitive and natural, and to make perfect sense in a New Zealand context. To a New Zealander, it seems like exactly the right thing to say.

Archival tape – Jacinda Ardern:

“We, New Zealand. We were not a target because we are a safe harbour for those who hate. We were not chosen for this act of violence because we condone racism, because we are an enclave for extremism, we were chosen for the very fact that we are none of these things.”

CHARLOTTE:

The fact that she said, the people who were targeted were part of New Zealand, they were New Zealanders, and that they were welcome here, but that the person who had perpetrated this atrocity, was not, and that she, and that New Zealand, would absolutely reject what he stood for and what he'd done.

Archival tape – Jacinda Ardern:

“The strongest possible condemnation of the ideology of the people who did this. You may have chosen us, but we utterly reject and condemn you.”

CHARLOTTE:

To me at the time, even as I was transcribing that conference, you could actually see these individual sentences going viral on social media, as she said them. And it was the same thing the following day when she met with the community.

Archival tape – Jacinda Ardern:

“If the imam who stood at the front of a mosque and saw firsthand the loss of his worshippers in front of him can get going, then I definitely can.”

CHARLOTTE:

I flew down with the Prime Minister and other political leaders, and went with her on her first visits with the community down in Christchurch.

Archival tape – Jacinda Ardern:

I am happy to take any questions that anyone might have. How am I? Thank you for asking. I'm very sad.

CHARLOTTE:

She donned a hijab, I believe, for the first time after the attack, and so did other female leaders she was with, including the city's mayor, and another cabinet minister. But just the sense in that room — there were survivors of the attack in the room, there were Muslim community leaders in the room —, we were all squished into this tiny community centre, and there was the sense that she was there to look after people, to tell them they were she was with them, and to make them feel heard.

Archival tape – Jacinda Ardern:

“New Zealand mourns with you. We are one.”

CHARLOTTE:

And I think it was just a perfect example of how, sometimes Ardern was able to tap into — and I think communicate better than most people could — the absolute best of what New Zealand is, and of what New Zealanders believe they are. But the way that that was seen as something extraordinary on the world stage was really interesting.

RUBY:

Yeah, that moment really translated into a lot of international acclaim. She was celebrated around the world. She ended up being invited on to US TV shows. There was so much talk about her here in Australia. But if we go back a bit to Jacinda Ardern's rise within New Zealand politics, before any of that happened, can you tell me a bit about how she developed as a political figure and what we can tell about her early years?

CHARLOTTE:

I think she developed as a classic centre left Labour figure in New Zealand, and possibly in a way that would resonate with people in the UK and Australia as well. As she got into politics as a student, she was actually a Labour Party supporter by the age of 17. She grew up in small rural towns. She was part of a Mormon family. She later said that she left the Mormon Church over the church's stance on LGBTQ issues. Her father was a police officer, and she had a pretty normal rural New Zealand childhood. She studied communication studies, politics and public relations, and then went to work for Helen Clark — New Zealand's then Prime Minister — and then went to the UK, where she worked for the UK Cabinet Office, as Tony Blair was about to hand over power to Gordon Brown.

And so I think she developed with all those core 90s and early 2000s sort of Labour tenets of Commonwealth countries. And I don't know that they necessarily predict the way that she responded to some of those crisis moments in New Zealand.

But I recall when the ‘Jacinda mania’ sort of fervour first started bubbling, about 24 hours after she became Labour Party leader in New Zealand. Trying to brief someone on what I understood her kind of policy positions to have been in the past, or what her political philosophies were, and really kind of struggling to articulate them beyond the Labour standard. So I think it was interesting that because she did these particular things, at these really particular moments for the world, what was kind of classic Labour politics, ended up exploding into something that felt a bit different.

RUBY:

Okay. So she's this incredibly popular, fresh, young leader who becomes known worldwide for this kind of empathetic approach to politics. Yet, she is now exiting the Prime Ministership with opinion polls looking very different to the way they did when she first came into power. The last polls before she announced her resignation had her approval rating at an all time low. So what happened to her popularity?

CHARLOTTE:

There's a few things in there. I should say first that one thing that isn't actually well known outside New Zealand, is that she actually didn't win that first election. The Labour Party won fewer seats than National, and a minor party leader called Winston Peters ended up — as he had been before — in a kingmaker position. He spoke to the leaders of the parties. He thought about it for about four weeks, and ended up deciding that he was going to go with Jacinda Ardern, even though she had won slightly fewer seats than National had. To be fair, she had only become party leader seven weeks before the election. So the fact that she'd picked up that much support in seven weeks was pretty incredible.

Archival tape – Jacinda Ardern:

“Seven weeks ago, I stood in front of the press, and New Zealand, as the newly elected leader of the New Zealand Labour Party. I called it “The worst job in politics.” I was wrong. The last seven weeks have been nothing but a privilege.”

CHARLOTTE:

It wasn't like she came into power on the strength of this enormous majority, in the way the rest of the world seems to feel like she had. That came later after the 2020 election where she and Labour won 65 out of 120 seats in New Zealand's parliament, which is unheard of.

Archival tape – Jacinda Ardern:

“And for that, I only have two simple words…thank you”

CHARLOTTE:

And so that support was never going to last. I think the fact that that support eroded so quickly was partly because those numbers in 2020 were so inflated that they were never going to match them again. But also there was some dissatisfaction, in some quarters, some of which I think got blown out of proportion to seem more than it was.
There were movements against, vaccination, against COVID-19 measures, vaccine mandates, lockdowns, that really gathered pace throughout 2021, and resulted in this three week occupation of parliament by protesters who were quite threatening and explicitly attempting to overthrow or undermine the government. And while that was a small group of New Zealanders, they did get a lot of attention.

There were also policies that the right were able to sort of jump on as a suggestion that Ardern had gone too far to the left. Again, policies that I think weren't widely understood, in particular, attempts to share power with Maori were a real lightning rod for criticism.

Then on the left, there were people who were getting dissatisfied with a person who, they believed, was going to have this radical progressive agenda, which she never really promised, or that after winning this huge level of support in 2020, that she was going to really use that to do some sort of wild leftist stuff which never really eventuated.

So I think it was really a natural chain of things that was always going to happen to her at some point. But obviously, the volatile landscape over 2021 and 2022, with Covid-19, and the opposition to Covid measures, I think really drove a lot of that.

RUBY:

We’ll be back after this.

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Archival tape – Jacinda Ardern:

“This summer I had hoped to find a way to prepare, not just for another year, but another term, because that is what this year requires. I have not been able to do that. And so today I'm announcing that I will not be seeking re-election. And that my term as Prime Minister will conclude no later than the 7th of February.”

RUBY:

When Jacinda Ardern resigned, she said that she just didn't have enough in the tank to continue, and so stepping away was the right thing to do. And she thought that someone with the energy to really take on the Prime Ministership should now have a chance to lead. So when you think about that, what is it exactly that might have sapped her energy? Is that down to the last few years of COVID and division around that? Or I mean, is this, you know, a time in which we should talk about the sexism that she experienced throughout her leadership?

CHARLOTTE:

I want to be really clear that she did not say that sexism or misogyny were reasons for her leaving the office. And I've been a little perturbed, over the past week or so, to see people stating, as fact, that it was the reason she left the office, which I think is kind of paternalistic and infantilising in a way. If she wants to come out and talk about that, then she can. But until that point, I don't think we can assert that she was hounded from office by sexists, if that's not how she feels. However, what is true, is that the misogyny and sexism around her Prime Ministership was astronomical, and vile, and violent. And so if that has has partly contributed to the overall sense of exhaustion. I would not blame her.

And in fact, covering Ardern made you subject to some of that same exhaustion for similar reasons. I think as the landscape became more fraught, not only would you as a woman journalist, receive sexism, and misogyny, and harassment, and abuse from detractors of Ardern, every time you wrote about her, but increasingly, you would get it from her supporters who were so I think, defensive and protective of her, and so angered by the misogyny that, you know, if you included a quote in a news story from someone who had disagreed with her, that, at times, made you subject to sort of an avalanche of misogynistic abuse yourself. Sometimes from Ardern supporters. So it had become truly fraught, and it's something that New Zealand has to address or deal with in some way if a woman is ever to be safe holding that job again.
However, I think what we have to come back to was the comments that Ardern made in the lead up to her assuming that Labour leadership role, when she said she actually didn't want to be Prime Minister. And I know that everybody says that. Every politician says, “Oh, who me? I couldn't possibly have aspirations in that area” but she really broke down reasons. Including that she was a naturally anxious person, that she beat herself up for bad performance, that she was a big worrier. She worried about her mistakes, she worried about getting things wrong, and that she felt, that kind of job would not be good for her for that reason. She gave an interview actually, with a women's magazine, in which she said those things about a month before she was thrust into the Labour leadership. And possibly, it was the last time she was able to be that frank and candid.

So when you look back at those comments that she made before she took up the role, and you think about the volume and the complexity of challenges that she has addressed over the past five years, it is little wonder that she would be at the bottom of the tank and ready to go.

RUBY:

And you mentioned the former Labour prime minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark earlier, and Jacinda Ardern also mentioned her when she became Prime Minister. She credited Helen Clark for inspiring her to get into politics. And she said that Clark's legacy had benefited her generation more than many people know, and that it would continue to do so for generations to come. So how has Jacinda Ardern measured up against that yardstick? Has the Ardern Prime Ministership changed New Zealand for generations to come?

CHARLOTTE:

That's a big question that I think it will take some time to answer. The landscape is currently so fraught that I think it is difficult to know. I also think that where Clarke focussed on these kind of, large moving parts — hefty chunks of policy — Ardern has kind of taken a bit more of a one at a time approach, where there are policies that have really stood out for people. New Zealand is introducing, this year, a more culturally competent and culturally informed Aotearoa — or New Zealand history — curriculum in schools. There is a commitment to more people speaking the Indigenous language, Maori, which is one of New Zealand's official languages. We, as of last year, have a public holiday for the Maori New Year celebration in Matariki. And there are policies in the welfare and domestic spaces, things like additional maternity leave, additional leave for survivors of domestic violence, that kind of thing.

But I'm not yet sure what yet her big, kind of, Helen Clark type policy architecture has been.

So I think that she has tried to make inroads into having those, kind of, big thematic political legacies, but she governs such a different climate to Helen Clark, and people wanted such different things from the left.

That you can read five people right now saying she will go down in history as the best Prime Minister in New Zealand ever had, and five people saying she'll go down in history as the worst. So give it a couple of years and we'll see.

RUBY:

And can we talk about who might be in government next, because this is an election year in New Zealand. So what does Jacinda Ardern's resignation mean for the Labour Party? What does it look like without her? Does this make things look better or worse for the party going into an election.

CHARLOTTE:

Chris Hipkins, her replacement, who has had a couple of days of being presumptive Labour leader, or prime minister elect, as it were, he's being sworn into the role today, Wednesday.

In one sense, it is an utter shock to have her gone, and it does leave Labour scrambling somewhat. But in another sense, it gives an opportunity for them to stealthily reinvent themselves somewhat, without looking like they're back pedalling in terms of policies that they might no longer want to be so committed to. Or putting a new face on policies, that in part, were controversial because some of Jacinda Ardern's detractors, or some of Labour's detractors, simply did not like Jacinda Ardern.

RUBY:

Yeah. For better or worse, politics with Jacinda Ardern at the helm was always going to be a personality contest. But that's over for the time being.

CHARLOTTE:

Exactly. I would hate to think that part of the reason Labour might find it easier, is because the sexists and misogynists can no longer explain their opposition to Labour as being because of its leader.

But at the same time, it is a big uphill battle for Labour. It was going to be either way. But given the economic conditions that have been reproduced in New Zealand, as they have been in other countries, it would be difficult for a government in New Zealand to win a third term in those conditions anyway. But what I do think it means is that Labour will have to very quickly come up with a strong suggestion of what they are about, once the lightning rod of Jacinda Ardern is no longer there for them, to in some ways, benefit from.

RUBY:

Charlotte, thank you so much for your time today. It's been really interesting.

CHARLOTTE:

Thanks so much.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today,

California has had its second mass-shooting in a single week, with a gunman killing seven people and critically injuring an eighth in Half Moon Bay, before a suspect was arrested.

Just three days prior, a different gunman killed 11 people near Los Angeles.

Marc Berman, California state assembly member, wrote, “Before we’ve even had a chance to mourn them, there is yet another mass shooting”

And…

In the UK, the estate of King Charles is suing Twitter over failed rent payments for the social media company’s London offices.

The estate of the British monarch has an extensive property portfolio, including the building that houses Twitter in London.

It is the second rent case taken against Twitter since it was bought by Elon Musk.

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