Just over two years on from stepping down as Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern is awaiting the imminent release of her memoir titled Jacinda Ardern, A Different Kind of Power. The launch will be supported by a nine-night US and UK book tour. The marketing around both employs the ‘kind and empathic’ messaging now firmly cemented as her international brand. Eventbrite, for example, asks us to imagine “what if kindness came first?” Today, if you ask Meta AI or ChatGPT “what one word best describes Jacinda Ardern’s leadership style” they will both respond with “empathetic”.
These words do not, however, encapsulate her brand in New Zealand – despite still being pushed by the country’s media, academics and those inside the Wellington bubble. No, ordinary Kiwis have a different take on the former prime minister.
At the time of her resignation in January 2023, Ardern’s leadership was viewed as toxic. Her party was in free fall in the polls, having plunged from 60% in October 2020 to just 27% by late 2022. Even the publication Stuff, an unabashed cheerleader of the Ardern government, admitted earlier this month that job losses, skyrocketing inflation and interest rates, increases in the cost of living, a host of unpopular policies, her leadership style and Covid mandates that “fractured social cohesion” had all driven a collapse in Ardern’s popularity.
Interestingly, this was not the first time that Ardern had struggled in the polls. In late 2019, just two years after becoming prime minister, Ardern’s party was polling 7 per cent lower than their main rival, the National party. Enter Covid: Ardern’s saving grace. By mid-2020, Labour was soaring in the polls and went on to win the October 2020 general election – an electoral phenomenon replicated worldwide as people, subjected to intense Covid fearmongering, rewarded political incumbents.
In hindsight, however, Covid – and more specifically, Ardern’s response to it – would play a significant role in her downfall. Over the proceeding years, Kiwis would come to learn that there was nothing kind or empathetic about her leadership and policies.
Kiwis saw firsthand, for example, how Graeme Hattie, who flew to New Zealand in July 2020 to visit his dying father, was treated. Hattie’s application for release from New Zealand’s mandatory 14-day quarantine on compassionate grounds was rejected twice. His father died while Hattie himself remained stuck inside a guarded quarantine hotel.
Then there were the hundreds of thousands of Kiwi citizens denied the right to return to New Zealand between April 2020 and February 2022 because of the country’s closed border policy and a quarantine lottery system, condemned by High Court Justice Jillian Mallon as “not demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”. These Kiwis missed important life events (e.g. births, marriages, jobs), and many, like Hattie, were stopped from comforting and farewelling dying loved ones.
Thousands of Kiwis were subjected to mandatory vaccination, despite explicit assurances by Ardern to the contrary in September 2020. Frontline border and quarantine workers were the first to be made to have vaccinations in late 2021, followed by the health and disability, and education sectors. Those who refused were threatened with losing their jobs – many did.
Worth reading in full.
Dr. Will Jones is Editor of the Daily Sceptic. He has a PhD in political philosophy, an MA in ethics, a BSc in mathematics and a diploma in theology. This article was first published HERE
7 comments:
All the while, many of us, ordinary citizens, were writing on blog sites saying "surely this can't end well, either socially or financially?". We contacted our MPs and signed petitions with no response. In my opinion, even though Ardern was the face of the covid disaster, all MPs at the time acted cowardly and timidly. Luxon openly stated he "admired Ardern". We need to elect people who act responsibly and not use these fortuitous disasters to further their own agendas. We need to have an opposition who "opposes", and asks questions. That was my take away of the sorry affair. I agree it is infuriating to see someone who caused so much harm, promoting herself like this. These people will always exist in our society though. Empty vessels make the most noise.
I've doubted for a long time that many things claiming to be Artificial Intelligence actually are "self-programming".
And also, if the technology is so groundbreaking and revolutionary why it is free?
Now I'm convinced IT IS NOT, and it is still prone to the same old GIGO dilemma "garbage in = garbage out".
"Empathetic" is not an adjective I would have chosen for that person and ChatGPT is a moron.
Ardern is the hoax of the century.
I think we can be certain there will not be a book tour in New Zealand.
If you thought Ardern lock down was tough, you should have tried Aus lock down the state barriers and Victoria with its curfew and distance monitoring and Dan Andrews.
Get over it NZ. Ardern is gone.
True comment Janine. Perhaps a more appropriate term for Ardern’s rule is ‘demonic’? The Covid era has proven itself fit for one thing only: the identification of a profound failure of governance in this country. We cannot allow a corrupt system to sustain itself. We are desperately in need of renewal and reform.
And now the aftermath of the Covid years continue to impact the health systems of New Zealand and many other countries.
What was the common factor?
Politicians who took direct control of the health system when respected medical professionals could have managed the situation.
I know, they said, we will make vaccinations mandatory and also lock down whole cities.
If mandatory vaccinations were the answer, medical professionals would have taken that option with far more contagious diseases, like measles.
They didn’t for the very good reason that doing so would act against their overall objective - increasing the vaccination rate to effective herd-immunity level.
Prior to Covid, the struggle was to persuade/encourage/motivate around 20 per cent who were not so much reluctant, merely apathetic or time poor. Public education campaigns targeted them, rather than the “antis”, who pre-Covid were only about two per cent of the population.
Comms campaigns were largely effective in achieving that.
However, it has all changed as a direct result of politicians and their so-called “tough leadership” which forced vaccination.
Now, the 20 per cent who were previously apathetic/couldn’t be bothered with vaccination, are actively anti-vax.
That leaves the country with a vaccination rate of 75 - 80% for measles when 95% is required for herd-immunity to protect everyone, including those who can’t receive the jab.
New Zealand had a recent epidemic of measles with more than 2000 cases. It was lucky to avoid an expected two to four deaths, but managed to export the diseases to Samoa where there were multiple fatalities.
Thanks Jacinda, et al.
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