Adelaide Writers’ Week, a core part of South Australia’s premier cultural event, the Adelaide Festival, has finally been cancelled in its 40th year.

There are own goals. And then there is the board of the Adelaide Festival (ably assisted by referee, Premier Peter Malinauskas). After yesterday’s resignation of chair Tracey Whiting and three further members, the board no longer had a quorum to make any decisions.

The chaos follows last week’s “uninvitation” of Palestinian-Australian sociologist, lawyer and author Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah. Almost 100 authors and presenters (of the 124 in the programme, according to InDailySA) cancelled their attendance in protest.

It was finally cancelled today. The damage is colossal.

Being one of the most popular and respected writers’ events in Australia, the list of withdrawals includes best-selling local writers Trent Dalton, Helen Garner and Hannah Kent, journalists Sarah Ferguson, Peter Greste and Laura Tingle, as well as international speakers former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, Yanis Varoufakis and Zadie Smith.

Literary luminaries such as Greg Sheridan are among the 30-odd who had yet to cancel. At least publicly. Some planned panel discussions were left with just one participant, and some stage interviews with just a questioner, somewhat stymying the discourse.

But it’s not just writers who are staying away; the main Festival is also seeing significant fallout, with day two of “Tryp”, the music programme, already cancelled because lead acts have said they are no longer coming. Then there are those already signed up and paid for — for events now cancelled, or planned to do so.

Sponsors rattled too
Last year, 362,000 people attended the two events, and according to the SA government’s impact report, they spent over $62 million. The economic impact will be felt not just by the organisers and the state government, but by hotels, restaurants, retailers and cellar doors from Clare Valley to the Padthaway.

At least one sponsor, Mischief Brew, pulled out, with others likely to monitor the situation closely. A low-attendance festival hitting headlines for all the wrong reasons is not an attractive marketing proposition.

Premier Malinauskas in all sorts
The otherwise well-liked SA Premier has perhaps helped the Zionist cause with his vocal support for the decision, but is unlikely to have found much sympathy beyond rusted-on readers of The Advertiser. But perhaps that’s what he was looking for?

The SA state election is in March, too.

Both he and Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis have been caught lying by stating that the Festival removed New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman from the 2024 programme at the behest of Dr Abdel-Fattah and 10 others who had written to the board and requested his exclusion because of an article he had written demeaning Palestinians and Arabs.

Notwithstanding the hypocrisy of that request, correspondence from the Festival showed they did not cave in; Friedman withdrew on his own accord.

In an attempt to diminish his earlier comments, Malinauskas has since stated that he had not “directed’ the board to act, but merely voiced “his opinion” in supporting the axing of Dr Abdel-Fattah.

It does, of course, also highlight the double standards of a board that rejected the request for a Jewish participant to be cancelled, for all the right reasons, yet were happy to comply when the target of the complaint was a Palestinian.

What will the board do?
Michael West Media understands that the board members who resigned were all supportive of Louise Adler’s programming decisions and understood the need to review the decision to cancel Dr Abdel-Fattah.

However, with Writers Week still over seven weeks away, it apparently could not be saved. Most of the authors who resigned said they would come if Abdel-Fattah was reinstated.

But as it stands, the board cannot decide anything. The Adelaide Festival is constituted by an Act of Parliament, and board members are appointed by the State Governor at the recommendation of the City of Adelaide and the State Government.

According to the act, the board has to have a maximum of eight members, at least two must be women and two must be men.

After the above was posted, chair Tracey Whiting resigned and also the director Louise Adler, who said in an article in The Guardian explaining her resignation that she “cannot be party to silencing writers”.

The board now has three members, two women and one man, plus a non-voting government observer. No quorum.

In addition, Dr Abdel-Fattah and several of those who have cancelled have engaged lawyers, and (unconfirmed) reports suggest so has Adler.

On Monday afternoon, Adelaide Festival Corporation’s executive director Julian Hobba issued a brief statement saying the situation was “complex and unprecedented”.

We bet it is. Stay tuned.

Kim Wingerei is a businessman turned writer and commentator. He is passionate about free speech, human rights, democracy and the politics of change. Originally from Norway, Kim has lived in Australia for 30 years. Author of ‘Why Democracy is Broken – A Blueprint for Change’.

Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker. This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Telikom PNG, which is 100 percent government-owned, has two key outlets: FM100 radio and EMTV.

Recently, it sacked FM100 talkback host Culligan Tanda after he featured opposition East Sepik Governor Allan Bird on his show, following the most recent vote of no confidence.

Local media report that Tanda was initially suspended for three weeks without pay on April 22, and subsequently terminated.

MCPNG president Neville Choi said this was just the latest example of media suppression by Telikom PNG going back to 2018.

He said that he himself was sacked in 2019 after EMTV had run a story quoting the former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern saying she would not be riding in one of the PNG government’s luxury Maseratis during an APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting in Port Moresby.

Choi said the story, though correct, was perceived as painting the government of the day in a “negative light”.

‘Free, robust media essential’
He said a “free, robust, and independent media is an essential pillar of democracy”.

“It is the cornerstone of allowing freedom of speech, and freedom of expression.

“Being in a position of power and authority gives no one, especially brown-nosing public servants wanting to score brownie points with the sitting government administration, the right to suppress media workers who are only doing their jobs, and doing it well,” he said.

The council also reminded the management’s of state-owned media organisations, that the Organic Law on the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) defined corrupt conduct by public officials and the dishonest exercising and abuse of official functions.

According to a PNG Haus Bung report, Marape has directed his chief of staff to get to the bottom of the issue.

He has also denied government interference, according to a report by Exeprenuer.

“We don’t get down that low as to editorial content,” Marape was quoted as saying by the the online magazine.

In December, Marape gave “full assurance that my government will not dilute the media’s role.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Survivors of abuse in care arrived at Parliament today to hear the formal apology from the state which oversaw and inflicted harm on children.

Public sector leaders from Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry of Health, New Zealand Police, and Ministry of Education also apologised, as did the public service commissioner and the solicitor-general, at an event preceding Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s national apology in the House.

By the afternoon, many survivors were still trying to absorb what had been said and what it meant, with some saying it was a “PR stunt,” some calling the speeches “hollow” and others not willing to believe the words until they saw action.

Abuse in state care — survivor reactions.   Video: RNZ

During his apology, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said many survivors did not want to engage with the current compensation process — but more than 3500 were — and he signalled there would be an extra $32 million funnelled into that system “while we work on the new redress system”.

Opposition leader Chris Hipkins said he formally joined with the government in its apology, saying the day was a significant step forward.

“Today is a hugely important day for all of you, to finally hear what the Crown has failed to give you for all of these years, an apology.”

Ken Clearwater, a long-time advocate for survivors, was at the event, saying he heard some great words but it was about “what action needs to go with it”.

“Everyone’s saying the right things, but if you look at the policies and stuff we have at the moment, that’s not helping our children.”

He believed National, leader of the coalition government, was going to have to change a lot of their policies.

“So we’re apologising for what happened in the past, but the policies are still in place that are making it no different than when we were in the past.

‘Hollow words .. . dangerous’
“To have hollow words at this stage would be, would be pretty dangerous.”

He said there had to be a belief the government would look into things, “but there’s got to be a survivor voice”.

He mentioned Tu Chapman, a survivor who spoke at the event, who pointed out only having five minutes to speak as a survivor at an apology for survivors.

“So once again, the survivor voice is not forefront, and I think that that’s what they’re going to have to look at, is how they get more more of the survivor voice in whatever policies they look at.”

Another survivor, Reihana Tahau, who had been in state care in the 1980s, agreed, saying he found it ironic there was an apology on one hand while the government goes through the process of appealing Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act.

For him, he said, “that’s the opposite, that’s counterintuitive” because 7AA was helping to stop bringing children into care.

“I can’t understand why they would appeal something that is actually working.

‘Mistrust, systematic trauma’
“And for me, my mistrust and systematic trauma, I can’t help but feeling that they’re not genuine in that, because if they were genuine, they wouldn’t be taking a thing which would potentially set up another generation for trauma.”

He acknowledged the apology was a step in the right direction, but “it still feels like a PR thing”.

“I do find it hard to trust people that read off a paper, because I talk from my heart.”

He said the speech from the prime minister was “part of his job” and he did not know how “authentic that is”.

Another survivor, Nicky, also said it was a “PR stunt”, and would not provide closure.

“This is a PR stunt for the prime minister to look good.”

Ardern thanked
She acknowledged Dame Jacinda Ardern for initiating the apology.

“We’d like to thank her for starting it, but they’ve sat on things, you know, for a quarter of a century we’ve been battling.

“We’re old, we’re broken but we’re still fighting.”

She called specifically for Salvation Army orphanages to be investigated and for their charitable status to be investigated.

“The government paid them to abuse me. We want that money.

“Where did that money go? It didn’t go in our care, it didn’t go in our food, and they worked us like child labour, just like Gloriavale [a small and isolated Christian community located on the West Coast of the South Island].”

Survivors in the room muttered or called out during the speeches, reacting — but saved their strongest reaction for Solicitor-General Una Jagose.

Boos, cries of ‘shame’
As she rose to speak, she was met with boos, and cries of “shame” and “disgrace”. One woman stood and turned her back. Another shouted: “You wanted us dead.”

Another survivor, who listened quietly and intently throughout the proceedings with tears streaming at times, said he wanted to hear what the public sector leaders had to say.

He said what Jagose said needed to be said.

“I’m disappointed, because I’m a lawyer, I’m disappointed that she was howled down and I couldn’t hear all that she said.”

He said he thought Jagose would be used by the government as a scapegoat.

“Us lawyers have to speak for the people we represent, whether they’re good or bad.

“And we shouldn’t be hung drawn and quartered because we’ve been instructed to say something or do something or fight something.”

Clearwater said he could not believe she was there.

‘Nobody wanted her there’
“By the noise there, nobody wanted her there, and so that was a bad choice on the government’s part.”

Tu Chapman spoke on behalf of survivors at the event, and did not think the chief executives should have been at the event apologising.

“It’s like putting the cart before the horse so to speak.”

Chapman was angry the prime minister left before hearing some speeches, saying it was “tokenistic”.

“I think he should have been there to listen to us, so that he could actually, authentically and genuinely apologise to us in the House this afternoon or early this morning.

“And it might have been a little bit more meaningful, because quite right now, it just feels tokenistic.”

Another survivor said the speeches today were “very empty, hollow”.

‘Carbon copy’ speech
He said the prime minister’s speech seemed to be a “carbon copy” of when he had been there for the tabling of the report.

In regards to the solicitor-general, he acknowledged “she was able to take what was getting handed to her and listen to it”.

“She actually took it on and then spoke when she could.”

He said the others seemed to want to get over with the speech fast, “that’s not how you do apologies”.

“You take what’s coming, surely they knew there was going to be some heckling going on.”

His message to the prime minister was not to wait, “take action now”.

Survivors representing mothers and adopted children said they felt they had been missed out of the equation.

More about abuse victims
One acknowledged today was more about abuse victims, but there could be a separate apology for mothers and their children that were “taken from them unlawfully and unwilling”.

“We would like the history of losing our children told in this country.

“I’ve flown from Australia for this and for the few words that were said, I really thought it was pretty poor.”

They want a full inquiry into what happened and an apology.

Another said in regards to the apologies, there were “some people who probably needed a brandy after getting up and speaking and apologising for the departments they worked for”.

“There was one in particular who shouldn’t have been there at all, who shouldn’t represent anybody, let alone the Crown.”

Healing process
Piiata Tiakitai Turi-Heenan said today was needed as part of the healing process for survivors, “this is a start”.

She also did not think the speeches were authentic.

“The words that were authentic came from the survivors themselves.”

She said if the government was looking for answers, they will come from “sitting down with the survivors and sorting everything out with them, rather than around a table with people who have had no experience of surviving”.

On the disruption of the speeches, she said “those were emotions”.

“The focus was on silencing those emotions, but that’s exactly why we are where we are today, because they were silenced in the first place.

“You have permission to not be silent anymore.”

Heart ‘on sleeve’
Another survivor said his heart was “on his sleeve at the moment”.

He had been speaking to various MPs after the event who assured him there was support across the House to make changes.

“I believe they’re sincere, but I’m still, I’m still thinking that I might get let down, but I’m hoping I’m wrong. I’m hoping that it does go ahead.

“Where to for me from here is that I’m gonna keep on doing what I do, until further notice, until I know for a fact, well, this is real.”

Chapman added the journey was only just beginning again for the survivor community.

“Another mechanism for us now is to actually encourage our survivor community to be more intentional about their engagement with the Crown, with ministers, and hold them to account.”

The new redress scheme
The minister in charge of the government response, Erica Stanford, told RNZ Checkpoint the current redress system was not perfect but the announced $32 million of funding to increase capacity and get through claims faster would help.

While some survivors queried why redress could not be addressed sooner, Stanford said nobody expected the government would be able to “turn on a dime” and deliver something straight away.

“We will have something up and running next year,” Stanford said, but she could not commit to an exact date.

Outbursts from survivors during the apology had been expected, Stanford said, due to the amount of “raw emotion” in the room.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The high-stress nature of working in politics is increasingly taking a toll on staff and politicians. But an additional threat to the personal wellbeing and safety of politicians resides outside Parliament, and the threat is ubiquitous: online violence against women MPs.

Since her election in 2017, Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman has been subject to persistent online violence.

Ghahraman’s resignation following allegations of shoplifting exposes the toll sustained online violence can have on a person’s mental health.

In an interview with Vice in 2018, Ghahraman expressed how the online abuse was overwhelming and questioned how long she would continue in Parliament.

Resigning in 2024, Ghahraman said in a statement:

it is clear to me that my mental health is being badly affected by the stresses relating to my work

and

the best thing for my mental health is to resign as a Member of Parliament.

Ghahraman is not alone in receiving torrents of online abuse. Many other New Zealand women MPs have also been targeted, including former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson, National MP Nicola Willis and Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.

Words can not only hurt, but they can seriously endanger a person’s wellbeing.

Online violence against women MPs, particularly against women of colour, is a concerning global trend. In an Australian study, women MPs were found to be disproportionately targeted by public threats, particularly facing higher rates of online threats involving sexual violence and racist remarks.

Similar online threats face women MPs in the United Kingdom. Studies show that women of colour receive more intense abuse.

Male politicians are also subject to online violence. But when directed at women the violence frequently exhibits a misogynistic character, encompassing derogatory gender-specific language and menacing sexualised threats, constituting gender-based violence.

Golriz Ghahraman’s exit from politics shows the toll of online bullying on female MPs

Many say it’s become overwhelming, writes @LegallyFeminist (@ucnz).https://t.co/PSsG9OBCii

— The Conversation – Australia + New Zealand (@ConversationEDU) January 19, 2024

Our legal framework is not enough
New Zealand’s current legal framework is not well equipped to respond to the kind of online violence experienced by women MPs like Ghahraman.

The Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 is designed to address online harassment by a single known perpetrator. But the most distressing kind of abuse comes from the sheer number of violent commentators, most of whom are unknown to the victim or intentionally anonymous.

This includes “mob style” attacks, where large numbers of perpetrators coordinate efforts to harass, threaten, or intimidate their target.

Without legal recourse, women MPs have two options — tolerate the torrent of abuse, or resign. Both of these options endanger representative democracy.

Putting up with abuse may mean serious impacts on mental health and personal safety. It may also have a chilling effect on what topics women MPs choose to speak about publicly. Resigning means losing important representation of diverse perspectives, especially from minorities.

Having to tolerate the abuse is a breach of the right to be free from gender-based violence. Being forced to resign because of it also breaches women’s rights to participate in politics. Therefore, the government has duties under international human rights law to prevent, respond and redress online violence against women.

“More than 70 national elections are scheduled for 2024. But one group is likely to be significantly under-represented: women. A major reason is the disproportionate amount of abuse female politicians and candidates receive online.”https://t.co/SuPn36zLb4

— Indo-Pacific Defense FORUM (@IPDefenseForum) January 12, 2024

Steps the government can take
United Nations human rights bodies provide some guidance for measures the government could implement to fulfil their obligations and safeguard women’s human rights online.

As one of the drivers of online violence against women MPs is prevailing patriarchal attitudes, the government’s first step should be to correctly label the behaviour: gender-based violence.

Calling online harassment “trolling” or “cyberbullying” downplays the harm and risks normalising the behaviour. “Gender-based violence” reflects the systemic nature of the abuse.

Secondly, the government should urgently review the Harmful Digital Communication Act. The legislation is now nine years old and should be updated to reflect the harmful online behaviour of the 2020s, such as targeted mob-style attacks.

New Zealand is also now out of step with other countries. Australia, the UK and the European Union have all recently strengthened their laws to tackle harmful online content.

These new laws focus on holding big tech companies accountable and encourage cooperation between the government, online platforms and civil society. Greater collaboration, alongside enforcement mechanisms, is essential to address systemic issues like gender-based violence.

Thirdly, given the increasing scale of online violence, the government should ensure adequate resourcing for police to investigate serious incidents. Resources should also be made available for social media moderation among all MPs and training in online safety.

More than ever, words have the power to break people and democracies. It is now the urgent task of the government to fulfil its legal obligations toward women MPs.

Dr Cassandra Mudgway is senior lecturer in law, University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Christopher Luxon and the National Party are on course to form a new government with the ACT Party in Aotearoa New Zealand, with National winning almost 40 percent of the party vote in yesterday’s general election.

National romped far ahead in the party vote in the election and were above 40 percent much of the night, but were falling just below at about 39 percent of the vote with 95 percent of results in the preliminary count as of nearly midnight.

That may mean the party needs New Zealand First to hit the numbers, but with special votes yet to be counted and a number of close electorate races, the final picture is not quite clear.

Labour was sitting at about 26.5 percent of the party vote, and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins conceded there was no chance he could form a government and that Labour was heading out after six years and two terms in office.

The Green Party was at about 10 percent, ACT at 9 percent, New Zealand First at 6.4 percent and Te Pāti Māori at 2.5 percent with 94 percent of results counted.

Te Pāti Māori was poised to win most of the seven Māori seats with new candidate Hana-Rawhiti Maipi Clarke defeating Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta in the Hauraki-Waikato electorate, ousting the longest serving female MP and at just age 21 becoming the youngest MP in Aotearoa in 170 years.

It is a stunning reversal from 2020’s election, when Labour hit 50 percent of the vote as Jacinda Ardern’s government won a second term and National cratered with 25.6 percent.

One Labour supporter told RNZ that “Labour expected a slap on the wrist. This is a punch in the face.”

‘A new government and a new direction’ – Luxon
Greeting cheering supporters in Auckland, Luxon said the results were a mandate for change.

“You have reached for hope and you have voted for change,” Luxon told supporters. “On the numbers tonight, National will be in a position to lead the next government.”

“My pledge to you is that our government will deliver for every New Zealander, because we will rebuild the economy and deliver tax relief.

“We will bring down the cost of living, we will restore law and order, we will deliver better health care and we will educate our children so that they can grow up to live the lives that they dreamed of.

“That’s what you voted for and that’s what we will deliver.”

A joyous crowd chanted “back on track” as Luxon spoke.

‘I gave it my all, but that was not enough’ – Hipkins
Earlier last night, Labour leader Chris Hipkins conceded that the party had no path to return to power, saying that “the result tonight is not one that any of us wanted”.

Hipkins replaced Jacinda Ardern in January, but he joined other prime ministers like Mike Moore, Jenny Shipley and Bill English in failing to win election in their own right after taking over from another leader mid-term.

“I gave it my all to turn the tide of history, but alas, that was not enough.”

Hipkins struck a defiant note in his speech and promised Labour would remain strong in opposition.

“When the tide comes in big it almost invariably goes out big as well . . . but Labour is still here, it is not going anywhere, and we will get up again as we have done many times before.

“We put people first, we refused to leave people behind, because that is what we do, that is what the Labour Party does.”

Many electorate seats were still too close to call, with only a few hundred votes separating candidates.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has received one of the top accolades in today’s King’s Birthday Honours.

Ardern, who was prime minister from September 2017 until January this year, has been appointed a Dame Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

She received the honour for services to the state.

Dame Jacinda declined to speak to RNZ about the award, but said in a statement she was “incredibly humbled”.

“I was in two minds about accepting this acknowledgement. So many of the things we went through as a nation over the last five years were about all of us rather than one individual,” Ardern said.

“But I have heard that said by so many Kiwis who I have encouraged to accept an honour over the years. And so for me this a way to say thank you — to my family, to my colleagues, and to the people who supported me to take on the most challenging and rewarding role of my life.”

Ardern’s official citation listed her leadership in response to the March 15 terrorist attacks and the covid-19 pandemic “positioning New Zealand as having one of the lowest covid-19 related death rates in the Western world.”

It noted she had been named top of Fortune Magazine‘s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders in 2021.

The citation also referenced Ardern’s focus on child poverty reduction and listed several policies her government introduced, including free school lunches in some schools.

Ardern was first elected in 2008 and became leader of the Labour Party in 2017. She became prime minister later that year.

Ardern announced her surprise resignation in January, saying she did not have “enough in the tank” to seek re-election.

Since leaving politics in April, Ardern has become New Zealand’s Special Envoy for the Christchurch Call and trustee of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize.

She has also been appointed two fellowships at Harvard University.

In a statement, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said Ardern was recognised for leading New Zealand through some of the “greatest challenges” the country has faced in modern times.

“Leading New Zealand’s response to the 2019 terrorist attacks and to the covid-19 pandemic represented periods of intense challenge for our 40th prime minister, during which time I saw first hand that her commitment to New Zealand remained absolute.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has used her valedictory speech to Parliament to ask the House to take the politics out of climate change.

In her speech, Ardern said when she became prime minister she knew she wanted climate change to be “front and centre”.

“I called it our nuclear moment — I believed it then and I believe it still now.

“We have seen first hand the reality of our changing environment … when crisis has landed in front of us I have seen the best of this place.”

Ardern said one of the only things she wanted to ask on her departure was for the House to take the politics out of climate change.

Her government had worked to uphold the Treaty of Waitangi by crossing the bridge more often, she said.

That included the creation of the Māori Crown portfolio, growth of te reo Māori, the establishment of the Māori Health Authority and the creation of Matariki — the first national Māori holiday, she said.

‘Not always easy’
“The path we travel as a nation will not always be linear and it won’t always be easy, but I’m glad I was in part of a government that took on the hilly bits.”

One of the hardest things about covid-19 was the unknowns, Ardern said.

“A valedictory is not the time to summarise a pandemic, no one has the time for that type of group therapy.”

Former prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s valedictory speech today. Video: Parliament

Ardern said she remained forever grateful that science was “on our side” and that she was surrounded by wonderful smart compassionate people trying to do the right thing.

She said they did not always get it right but “we went in as a nation with a goal to look after one another and we did”.

Other things, such as a sense of security, were lost along the way and so much of the information swirling around during the pandemic was false, Ardern said.

Ardern described how she tried and failed to convince a protester that they were relying on totally false information.

She said she could not single-handedly pull someone out of a rabbit hole but that perhaps collectively “we could stop them from falling into it in the first place”.

“Debate is critical to a healthy democracy but conspiracy is its nemesis.”

Struggled over mosque attacks
Ardern said she still struggled to talk about the mosque attacks in Christchurch on 15 March 2019, but the Muslim community had humbled her beyond words.

She said she was unsure what the response of one of the survivors of the attack would be when she met him in the immediate aftermath.

“What came next is one of the most profound memories I have of that period, he thanked us. Here was someone who had been through one of the most horrific experiences I could imagine and he thanked New Zealand and expressed gratitude for his home.”

The most significant task for us as a nation was “to live up to the expectations that those experienced it have of us, to deserve their thanks”.

Ardern became emotional at the end of her valedictory speech describing herself as sensitive, somewhat negative, and “a crier and a hugger”.

But said she “would rather be criticised for being a hugger than being heartless”.

She closed her speech telling the House that she hoped she had demonstrated anyone could be a leader.

‘You can lead, just like me’
“You can be anxious, sensitive, kind and wear your heart on your sleeve, you can be a mother or not, you can be an ex-Mormon or not, you can be a nerd, a crier, a hugger — you can be all of these things and not only can you be here, you can lead, just like me.”

Ardern received a standing ovation at the end of her speech, before hugging Finance Minister Grant Robertson (who had been her deputy) and then Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni.

Yesterday, it was announced the former prime minister was taking on two new roles: A voluntary position as Special Envoy for the Christchurch Call and trustee of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize.

Ardern resigned in January saying she no longer had “enough in the tank” to lead the country.

Former prime minister Helen Clark said Ardern would be remembered largely as the prime minister whose pandemic-era policies saved thousands of Kiwis’ lives.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Jacinda Ardern will largely be remembered in Aotearoa New Zealand as the prime minister whose pandemic-era policies saved thousands of Kiwi lives, according to former prime minister Helen Clark.

And she will also be considered an example of how to govern in the age of social media and endless crises, political experts say, while also achieving more than her critics might give her credit for.

Ardern was set to deliver her valedictory speech later today, having stepped down as prime minister earlier this year after just over five years in the job.

“I think that while I’m happy for Jacinda that she’s going to get a life and design what she wants to do and when she wants to do it, you can’t help feeling sad about her going,” Clark, herself a former Labour prime minister, told RNZ Morning Report ahead of Ardern’s speech.

“Leaders like Jacinda don’t come along too often and we’ve lost one.”

Ardern has played down suggestions online vitriol played a part in her decision to stand aside — but acknowledged on Tuesday she hoped her departure would “take a bit of heat out” of the conversation.

Clark said she “fundamentally” believed the hatred got to Ardern, powered by “populism and division” generated by former US President Donald Trump and his supporters.

‘Conspiracies took hold’
“Conspiracies took hold and suddenly you know, as the pandemic wore on here, I think the sort of relentless barrage from America — not, not just through Trump himself and the reporting of him, but through the social media networks — we have the anti-science people, the people who completely distrusted public authority, the QAnon conspiracies and hey, it played out on our Parliament’s front lawn and it still plays out and it’s very, very vitriolic and divisive.

“So I think that that spillover impact was really quite, well, not just unpleasant — it was horrible.”

Researchers have found Ardern was a lightning rod for online hate.

The perpetrator of the 2019 mosque shootings used the internet to connect with and learn from other extremists, which led to Ardern setting up the Christchurch Call movement to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.

Her post-parliamentary career will include continuing that work, as New Zealand’s Special Envoy for the Christchurch Call, reporting to her replacement, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins.

“The mosque murders was just the most horrible thing to have happen on anyone’s watch, and she rose to the occasion, and I think the international reputation was very much associated with initially the empathy that she showed at that time,” said Clark.

But “one of New Zealand’s darkest days”, as Ardern put it at the time, was not the only near-unparalleled crisis she had to deal with in her time as prime minister.

“The White Island tragedy was another that needed, you know, very empathetic and careful handling. But then comes covid, and there’s no doubt that thousands of people are alive today because of the steps taken, particularly in 2020.

‘Would we have survived?’
“You know, I mean, I’m obviously in the older age group now which is more vulnerable. My father is 101 now and has survived the pandemic. But would we have survived it if it had been allowed to rip through our community, like it was allowed to rip through others?

“I think that there’d be so many New Zealanders not alive today had those steps not been taken.”

Data shows New Zealand has actually experienced negative excess mortality over the past few years — the elimination strategy so successful, fewer Kiwis have died than would have if there was no pandemic.

Former Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said that was “unique, virtually unique around the world”.

Despite that, it was New Zealand’s aggressive approach towards covid-19 in 2020 and 2021 that arguably drove much of the polarisation and online vitriol.

“There’s no doubt that those measures did save lives. They also drove people into frenzied levels of opposition and fear and isolation,” said Clark. “They felt polarised, they felt locked out.”

But she said Ardern bore “very little” responsibility for that.

Political scientist Dr Bronwyn Hayward of the University of Canterbury said Ardern’s Christchurch Call to eliminate extremist content will have a long-lasting impact on not just New Zealand, but the world.

“There’s been a lot made about the fact that she resigned under pressure from the trolls, which is completely missing the point that what she’s saying is that in this era where we’ve got particularly Russian, but also other countries’ bots that are attacking liberal leaders,” Dr Hayward told Morning Report, saying Ardern was the first global leader to “really understand” how what happens online can spill over into the real world.

“She understands that democracies are now under attack, and the front line is your social media, where we’ve got a propaganda war coming internationally.

“So she’s taken a very systemic approach to thinking about how to tackle that, so that in local communities it feels like you’re reeling from Islamophobia, to racism to transphobia, but actually, when we look internationally at what’s happening, naive and quite disaffected groups have been constantly fed this material and she’s taken a systemic approach to it.”

Clark said one of the biggest differences in the world between Ardern’s time as prime minister and her own, was that she did not have to deal with social media.

“I didn’t have a Twitter account, didn’t know what it was really. We had texts, that was about it. We used to have pagers, for heaven’s sake.”

Ardern’s domestic legacy
One of the first things Hipkins did when he took over as prime minister was the “policy bonfire” — but critics have long said the Ardern-led government has had trouble delivering on its promises.

Interviewer Guyon Espiner reminded Clark that her government had brought in long-lasting changes like Working for Families, the NZ Super Fund and Kiwibank — asking her what Ardern could point to.

Clark defended Ardern, saying the coalition arrangement with NZ First in Ardern’s first term slowed any reform agenda she might have had, and then there was covid-19.

“Looking back, there needs to be more recognition that the pandemic blindsided governments, communities, publics around the world. It wasn’t easy.”

Dr Hayward pointed to the ban on new oil and gas exploration and child poverty monitoring, “which before that was ruled as impossible or too difficult”.

Dr Lara Greaves, a political scientist at the University of Auckland, said it was “incredibly hard to really evaluate” Ardern’s legacy outside of covid-19.

“Ultimately … she is the covid-19 prime minister.”

The future
Clark said Ardern would be emotional during her valedictory speech.

“You have very close relationships with colleagues, you have relationships with others of a different kind — with the opposition, with the media, with the public — and you’re walking away, you’re closing the door on it.

“But you know that a new chapter will open, and that life post-politics can be very rewarding. I’ve certainly found it so. I have no doubt that Jacinda will get back into her stride with doing things that she feels are worthwhile for the the general public and worthwhile for her.”

After losing the 2008 election, Clark rose the ranks at the United Nations. She said while that was an option for Ardern, there is plenty of time for the 42-year-old to do other things first.

“I was, you know, 58 when I left being prime minister. And Jacinda’s leaving in her early 40s and she has a young child, so who knows? She may want Neve to grow up with a good old Kiwi upbringing.

“And she may want her, you know, involvement internationally to be more, you know, forays out from New Zealand. That’s for her to decide. I mean, the world’s her oyster, if she chooses to follow that.”

Dr Greaves also pointed to Ardern’s relative youth.

“It seems like she’s going for a period of sort of recovery and reflection and figuring out what to do next. But of course, she’s got another 20 years in her career, at least — the world’s her oyster.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

As Jacinda Ardern gets ready to deliver her valedictory speech in the Parliament today, former prime minister Helen Clark says she will largely be remembered as the prime minister whose pandemic-era policies saved thousands of Kiwis’ lives. https://t.co/LhKPSZulpW

— RNZ (@radionz) April 5, 2023

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Getty Images

Jacinda Ardern’s resignation as prime minister in January was a courageous and pragmatic decision for herself, her family and her party. Although many said she’d done a great job as leader, she rightly reminded us that a great leader is “one who knows when it’s time to go”.

Since hitting stellar heights in mid-2020, Ardern’s Labour Party had dropped significantly in the polls and was trailing the opposition National Party throughout 2022. The “Jacinda effect” had switched from being a uniting force to a polarising one. With an election coming in October, it was time for a change.

Her decision to stand down was as politically astute and timely as her elevation to leader of the Labour Party in August 2017. After all, Labour is now ahead of National in recent polls.

By the time she gives her valedictory statement to parliament later today, Ardern will have served as an MP for nearly 15 years. While the intervening period has undoubtedly changed her, she remains in many ways the same person she was as a novice backbencher.

In her maiden speech to the House of Representatives in 2008, she expressed the small-town values that got her started:

Some people have asked me whether I am a radical. My answer to that question is very simple: I am from Morrinsville. Where I come from a radical is someone who chooses to drive a Toyota rather than a Holden or a Ford.

She described herself as a social democrat who believed in human rights, social justice, equality and democracy. She spoke especially about work, education, community and the reduction of poverty – child poverty in particular.

All fine aspirations. But back then, Ardern’s Labour Party was looking at nine long years in opposition after Helen Clark’s three-term government lost power. Unable to break the run National’s John Key enjoyed as prime minister, Labour went through one leader after another while Ardern rose through the ranks.

In mid-2017, despite a mood for change, it still looked like the election wouldn’t go well for Labour, at the time polling down around 25%. Then, at the beginning of August, Andrew Little handed leadership of the party to Ardern. With just seven weeks until the election, it was either an inspired move or the ultimate hospital pass.

As history shows, however, Ardern’s elevation immediately energised Labour’s campaign. It also drew international attention to the New Zealand election, as what became known as “Jacindamania” changed the mood on the streets and in the media.

Accidents of history

Critics sometimes labelled Ardern the “accidental prime minister” – a rookie “appointed” by Winston Peters, whose New Zealand First party held the balance of power in post-election negotiations. Conventional wisdom has it that Ardern simply offered Peters a better coalition deal, despite her party having won fewer seats than National.

But Peters gave those critics some more ammunition during a recent TV interview. He appeared to reveal that New Zealand First was forced to choose coalition with Labour when then-National leader Bill English alerted him to a potential leadership coup by Judith Collins.

Read more:
NZ election 2020: Jacinda Ardern promised transformation — instead, the times transformed her

According to Peters, English had assured him Collins didn’t have the numbers to pull it off. (Collins would eventually become National leader, of course, losing spectacularly to Ardern at the 2020 election.)

This sliding-doors version of events may be conjecture. But Peters can’t have forgotten how Jenny Shipley had rolled previous National leader and prime minister Jim Bolger in 1997. That ultimately led to the breakup of the National-New Zealand First coalition in which Peters had been deputy prime minister and treasurer.

Perhaps, then, we have Collins to thank for Ardern’s elevation to the top job. We’ll probably never know.

Rise and fall

The “Jacinda effect” wasn’t a flash in the pan, however. Labour’s election support went from 25% in 2014 to 37% in 2017, and then to an extraordinary 50% in 2020. Coming on the back of Ardern’s exemplary leadership through the COVID pandemic, it was an unprecedented result under the country’s proportional MMP system.

Her belief in “kindness” as a political force appeared to have been vindicated, if not for long. While New Zealand eventually recorded the world’s lowest excess mortality rate during the pandemic, this success was far from cost-free. In particular, there was a human and political price to pay for the lockdowns and border closures.

Businesses struggled, many New Zealanders abroad couldn’t return, and many resisted the pressure to be vaccinated. No nation escaped unscathed, and in New Zealand resistance to vaccine mandates boiled over on the grounds of parliament in early 2022.

Read more:
Anniversary of a landslide: new research reveals what really swung New Zealand’s 2020 ‘COVID election’

Some protesters were angered by Ardern’s trademark empathy and kindness, which they now perceived as a false front. Due to the extremist elements among the protests, she refused to address them directly.

Ardern’s positive leadership reputation was earned on her responses to tragedies: the Christchurch terror attack, the Whakaari-White Island eruption, and the pandemic. But no sane politician would have welcomed such crises.

Nor were they part of Ardern’s social democratic plan. In fact, they hindered it. She did a lot for child poverty and family incomes, in line with her core values. But those achievements were overshadowed by a pandemic response that upended her government’s fiscal policy.

Promise unfulfilled

So, if catastrophes were the making of Jacinda’s career as prime minister, they were also the breaking of it. From her first campaign speech in August 2017, she had created a sense of promise that her government was ultimately unable to fulfil.

She claimed climate change was her generation’s “nuclear-free moment”, and that a decent, affordable home was everyone’s right. It sounded great, but on both counts progress fell short of expectation and need. Later, she would capitulate on a full capital gains tax to help solve the housing crisis. That allowed coalition partner Peters to claim credit for the backdown.

Read more:
Women leaders and coronavirus: look beyond stereotypes to find the secret to their success

But it would also be wrong if the lasting narrative was one of failure to deliver. Her government’s Child Poverty Reduction Act now mandates reporting on progress towards poverty targets, bringing the problem into the engine room of fiscal policy. The Healthy School Lunches program helped reduce food insecurity.

Future governments will encounter strong political resistance if they try to rescind those measures.

Even those tireless advocates for children, the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), gave Ardern qualified approval following her resignation – although the truce didn’t last long. CPAG was back on the attack when Stats NZ reported “child poverty rates for the year ended June 2022 were unchanged compared with the previous year”.

A complex legacy

In the end, Ardern did not use the single-party majority she won in 2020 to fix the things she’d wanted to fix. When her government saw a problem, its default setting was to say “let’s centralise it” – as if that would do. Good social democratic government was sidelined by bureaucratic shakeups in healthcare, education and (before the plan was cancelled) public broadcasting.

An elaborate structural reform of water services became mired in controversy over Māori co-governance and loss of local democratic control. The sixth Labour government’s only potentially historic contribution to the development of New Zealand’s social security system – a proposed unemployment insurance scheme – was quietly shelved after criticism from both left and right.

So, will Ardern be remembered as one the great Labour leaders? To do so would put her in the pantheon of Michael Joseph Savage and Peter Fraser, who achieved so much in social security, healthcare and education, and who led the country through the second world war.

Read more:
‘The shoes needing filling are on the large side of big’ – Jacinda Ardern’s legacy and Labour’s new challenge

It would also place her next to Norman Kirk, whose 1972-75 government universalised accident compensation, introduced the domestic purposes benefit, and stood against French nuclear testing in the Pacific.

It’s a high bar, but not unreasonable to make the case. Ardern broke through barriers for women, most notably giving birth to her daughter while she held office. She united the country after the mosque shootings, soothing what could have become a divisive moment. By listening to the scientific evidence and advice about COVID, she helped save countless lives.

Ardern will undoubtedly be remembered as one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s outstanding prime ministers. This may not be for reasons of her choosing, though. Once the disaster management is accounted for, there are no major lasting achievements for which her government will be cited in the history books.

What will be remembered is Ardern’s exemplary and highly effective leadership through COVID. Yet there is no “kind” pathway through an unkind pandemic. Nevertheless, Jacinda Ardern is owed gratitude for all that she did – and acknowledgement of all she had to endure – to get her nation through it.

Grant Duncan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Jacinda Ardern says goodbye to parliament: how her politics of kindness fell on unkind times – https://theconversation.com/jacinda-ardern-says-goodbye-to-parliament-how-her-politics-of-kindness-fell-on-unkind-times-202434

Aotearoa New Zealand has become hugely polarised and it is little wonder Jacinda Ardern has decided to call it a day, says Helen Clark.

The former New Zealand prime minister and Labour Party leader is no stranger to the ups and downs of politics. However, she said current politicians faced vitriol 24/7 thanks to social media.

She said Aotearoa was seeing some of the worst elements of US politics.

Clark, who is in Switzerland at present, said she awoke to find she had received dozens of messages on her phone and was stunned, but, after a moment of reflection, not surprised by Ardern’s decision.

“I’ve seen the public pressures of vitriol and mouthing against Jacinda in a very, very unfair way and at some point, as she said, you’re human, at some point you don’t have any gas left in the tank, and she’s made the call that is absolutely right for her and her family.”

While Clark faced a huge amount of unpleasant criticism during her nine years as prime minister, she told RNZ Morning Report social media had given it more licence.

“The amount of anonymous trolling and venomous commentary is absolutely ghastly.

‘Anti-vaxxers . . . extreme language’
“I was going through the responses to the tweet I put up and the hate brigade is out in force — the anti-vaxxers, the people calling Jacinda a dictator, really just extreme and absurd language.”

In Clark’s time, talkback radio was the dominant outlet for people to express hateful views, but there was not the “24-hour trolling and viciousness on social media”.

Clark said she considered herself lucky to have led the country before the advent of social media which had made the role so much tougher.

She believed Ardern may have had an enjoyable summer and would have seriously considered if she could continue in the face of the antagonism she was experiencing.

The Waitangi Day barbecue had been cancelled late last year for security reasons and demonstrated the level of pressure the prime minister faced, Clark said.

Ardern’s programme could not be announced in advance because of the risk of “these militia-shouting crowds turn up”, she said.

“We haven’t experienced this in New Zealand for the most part. We’ve become very polarised. We’ve taken on a lot of the worst aspects of American politics, I think.

‘Time for society to reflect’
“So I think it is time to reflect as a society how we’re letting ourselves be so divided and polarised by this.”

Clark said normally mild-mannered people were proclaiming vicious views and the country did not used to be like this.

The covid-19 pandemic and the need for vaccinations had been a huge factor in the dissemination of extreme views.

Clark recalled going to school with a boy who had a withered leg, the result of polio, and there was a general acceptance of the need for vaccinations.

“It has been extraordinary to see this deterioration of basic science.”

She was not prepared to say publicly who should take over as Labour leader, but she was in no doubt there were well-qualified candidates within the caucus.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Well, no one saw that coming. For those in New Zealand relieved that Christmas was over because it means politics resumes, this week held the promise of a cabinet reshuffle, the possible unveiling of some meaty new policy and — if we were really lucky — the announcement of the date of this year’s general election.

We got the last of these (it will be on October 14). What we also got, however, was the announcement that in three weeks’ time one of the most popular — and powerful — prime ministers in recent New Zealand history will be stepping down.

It isn’t difficult to divine why Jacinda Ardern has reached her decision. As she herself put it:

I believe that leading a country is the most privileged job anyone could ever have but also one of the more challenging. You cannot and should not do it unless you have a full tank plus a bit in reserve for those unexpected challenges.

She has had more than her fair share of such challenges: a domestic terror attack in Christchurch, a major natural disaster at Whakaari-White Island, a global pandemic and, most recently, a cost-of-living crisis.

On top of that, of course, she has had to chart a way through the usual slate of policy issues that have bedevilled governments for decades in this country, including the cost of housing, child poverty, inequality and the climate crisis.

Clearly, the Ardern tank is empty.

But it isn’t just about the policy. Along with other women politicians, Ardern faces a constant barrage of online and in-person abuse — from anti-vaxxers, misogynists and sundry others who simply don’t like her.

As others with direct experience of this have written, the deterioration in civic discourse in New Zealand has been profound and disturbing, especially since the violent occupation of the parliamentary precinct in early 2022.

🔴 #BREAKING: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will not seek re-election and has revealed the date she will stand down https://t.co/UET5ZoszD1 #Newshub pic.twitter.com/fPAROdI5l2

— Newshub (@NewshubNZ) January 19, 2023

Ardern has spent the past two years right on the frontline of this sort of toxicity. This has taken a toll — on her, on her family, on those close to her — and has played a part in her decision.

A tale of two legacies
In time, however, what people will remember most about Ardern’s term in office is the manner of her response to serious crises. She has faced more than any other New Zealand prime minister in recent history and, in the main, has responded with calmness, dignity and clarity.

There are always competing points of view on these matters, of course. But her refusal to engage in the rhetoric of abuse or disparagement (her recent reference in Parliament to an opposition MP as an “arrogant prick” aside), which has become the stock-in-trade of too many elected representatives, has marked her out in a world in which abuse has become normalised in politics.

Critics may deride this as “mere performance”. But politics is — above all else — a matter of controlling the narrative. And for a long time Ardern and her team were very good at this.

That said, there is plenty she hasn’t achieved. She came to power promising transformation, but inequality and poverty remain weeping sores on the body politic.

Her Labour government has not been able to alleviate the chronic shortage of public housing that has existed for many years, and workforces in public health, education and construction face challenges no future government will relish.

No obvious successor
Attention now turns to Labour’s leadership and the party’s caucus vote this Sunday. A majority of 60 percent plus one more vote is required to secure the position, and Labour will be hoping this is what happens.

If not, the party’s constitution requires it to establish an electoral college comprising the caucus (which gets 40 percent of the total vote), the wider party membership (40 percent) and affiliate members (20 percent). This would be time-consuming, potentially divisive and a distraction.

Look for a clear-cut decision to be announced on Sunday.

The other big surprise has been Finance Minister and Ardern’s deputy Grant Robertson ruling himself out of the contest. Many people assumed he was the logical successor, but his decision opens the field wide.

Even including Ardern’s inner circle of David Parker, Chris Hipkins and Megan Woods, the bench is not that deep, and none of the candidates has anything like Ardern’s wattage. The shoes needing filling are on the large side of big.

Australian PM Anthony Albanese said she has “shown the world how to lead with intellect and strength”. https://t.co/Mkg8u82vxL

— Stuff (@NZStuff) January 19, 2023

Mixed news for National
Unsurprisingly, Ardern’s announcement has dominated the news cycle in New Zealand, leaving no room for consideration of another important event this week — the National Party’s first caucus of the year.

One might imagine that on hearing news of Ardern’s resignation there might have been jubilation in some sections of the party. Labour’s polling has been falling for some time now, while support for centre-right parties National and ACT has been climbing.

Ardern is still significantly more popular than National’s leader, Christopher Luxon, and he will likely be quietly pleased he won’t have to face Ardern on the campaign trail. She was good at that stuff; he is still learning.

National will be thinking, too, that some of the support for Labour that is tied to Ardern herself — including the support Labour received in 2020 from people who habitually vote for National — can now be peeled off and brought home.

Wider National heads will counsel caution, however. As the covid years have rolled by, Ardern has become an increasingly polarising figure.

By stepping aside now she gives her party plenty of time to instal a new leadership group that can draw a line under the past three years and focus on the future.

It is far too soon to tell, of course, if the country will buy a new narrative in which Ardern is not the key character. But she is giving Labour every chance of having a decent crack at it.

Leaving on her own terms
Are there broader lessons in all of this for international audiences? Depressingly, perhaps the key one concerns the price paid by elected representatives in these times of polarisation and the normalisation of abuse.

Around the world, women politicians in particular have borne the brunt of the toxicity and there are many who will see in Ardern’s departure a silencing of a woman’s voice.

On the upside, perhaps there are also things to be learned about the exercise of political leadership. Ardern has chosen the time and manner of her leaving — she has not lost the position because of internal ructions or because of an election loss.

Her reputation will be burnished as a result, and if anything it will generate even more political capital for her — although whether or not she chooses to distribute that currency on the international stage remains unclear. But you rather suspect she might at some point.

For now, though, she will be looking forward to walking her child to school and finally being able to marry her long-term partner. After a tumultuous and more-than-testing time in office, that may yet be reward enough.

Dr Richard Shaw is professor of politics, Massey University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Anusha Bradley, RNZ News investigative reporter

Within hours of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s shock resignation announcement in Napier, a small crowd gathered outside the city’s conference centre.

Unlike the steady stream of shocked Labour MPs still coming to terms with the news, these folks were celebrating.

“Ding dong the witch is gone,” a placard read.

Online, there have been similar sentiments to be found among groups bitterly opposed to Ardern. The Freedom and Rights Coalition even takes credit for Ardern’s departure in a post on Facebook: “We can now celebrate the departure of this leader of division. We did it!”

The comments on the post are unfit to repeat here.

Entering what would have been her sixth year, Ardern is the longest-serving Labour Prime Minister after Peter Fraser and Helen Clark. But in an emotional speech to her caucus in Napier she revealed she “no longer had enough in the tank” to do the job.

“It’s time,” she said.

“As much as I have taken great joy in this job, I would be giving a disservice to this country and to the Labour Party if I continued, knowing that I just don’t have enough in the tank for another four years.”

Violent abuse
While it wasn’t explicitly stated, it’s hard to imagine the increasingly violent abuse directed at her was not part of the reason.

“It is no surprise to me at all … she could not, not be affected by this,” says Disinformation Project director Kate Hannah.

Ardern probably tops the list for the amount of vitriol endured by any political leader in this country, Hannah believes.

“In the earlier parts of her first term we got sort of commentary about her looks and her lack of perceived experience. The fact that sort of she was, you know, well spoken, and really good at communicating complex issues was kind of a slur against her.”

But in the last two years the misogyny and violence directed towards Ardern has not only increased in volume, but also become more dangerous, says Hannah, who studies online hate speech and disinformation.

“The language and imagery used to talk about the Prime Minister has become more violent, more vulgar, more crude and repetitive.”

According to a recent study, published just before Christmas, which charts the rise of misogynistic language towards female leaders and women in the public sphere, the most prevalent word used to describe the Prime Minister in these circles is “the C word, and the most prevalent visual image is of witchcraft”.

“And this is old data. This is data from the middle of last year. So it’s actually got worse.”

Grim factoid
Another grim factoid from the paper shows the word “Neve” – referring to Ardern’s pre-school daughter — is also on the most prevalent list.

In June, it was revealed the number of threats towards Ardern has almost tripled in the past three years.

Hannah, who herself has been subjected to similar abuse — including death threats — says she presented the paper’s findings to Ardern and a range of MPs late last year.

How did Ardern react?

“As we all do . . . trying to laugh it off and saying the job is more important . . . and you just have to get on with the job,” says Hannah.

But this is no laughing matter, she says. This new virulent brand of misogyny is on the rise and it affects all women.

“The international disinformation, far right, pro-Putin community is incredibly misogynistic.

‘Incredibly abusive’
“It is incredibly abusive and derogatory, and what it does is attempts to reduce a person to their basic self, and in doing so signals to every other person who shares characteristics with that individual who has been targeted that they are equally worthless, equally base, equally loathed.

“So has this purpose of both targeting individually her as a woman, her role as prime minister, and then all women or all people who share some of those characteristics with her,” says Hannah.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s biggest moments.    Video: RNZ News

Massey University senior lecturer Dr Suze Wilson, who studies leadership and has examined the vitriol aimed at Ardern, says even the coining of “Jacindamania”, referring to her meteoric rise in popularity as leader served as an early warning of what was to come.

“As if somehow people were losing their heads to be excited by the prospect of a potential Prime Minister, who was young and female and articulate, through to the last couple of years where it’s become increasingly violent, the kind of abuse to which she’s been subjected.”

While the pandemic has been a factor, research also shows that generally it is becoming more challenging for women to be taken seriously, says Wilson.

“Particularly if they are younger and particularly if they don’t cleave to a masculine style, which Ardern does not.”

Worryingly, misogynistic sentiment is also on the rise globally. The latest Reykjavik Index for leadership tracks views about whether a man or woman would be more suitable to a certain position.

Backwards trend
“The most recent data came out just before Christmas, and it is showing that in some countries for the first time that there was actually some backwards moving trends,” says Wilson.

“It was showing, alarmingly, that it’s particularly among younger men, and those are the ones that are being exposed to the likes of Jordan Petersons and Andrew Tates of the world who are learning from them a really just disrespectful and antagonistic view towards women.”

Wilson says she first started noticing a shift in sentiment towards Ardern during the first 2020 lockdown. But it didn’t come from the dark corners of the anti-vax movement, but on the mainstream business social networking site LinkedIn.

‘”I started seeing people, you know like business leaders, using words like tyrant and dictator to describe the prime minister, and I was kind of quite disturbed by that.

“The fact that they can make those kinds of statements and think that somehow that would be a credible statement, tells you kind of something about the shifting norms of what’s considered an OK way to talk about our prime minister.”

Dr Wilson believes this must have taken its toll on Ardern.

“It’s hard to believe that it wouldn’t affect you, right? I mean, it would affect anybody . . . Having people talk about wanting to hang her, wanting to harm her child, the persistent rumours about her partner. She’s human, of course it’s going to take quite a toll.”

‘Look in the mirror’
Ardern herself has rarely acknowledged the abuse publicly. Wilson can understand why.

“I can understand why she doesn’t want to highlight it, because it would be, perhaps for those that are engaged in that behaviour, some kind of reinforcement that what they’re doing is having an effect.

“But really, they should just look in the mirror and be deeply ashamed of their conduct.”

Hannah says it’s also worrying the violent rhetoric towards the prime minister is now considered the “new normal”.

“This type of language and abuse is now so normalised that it’s very hard to pull back from. When people have become accustomed to using the C word, as the most commonly used word to describe the prime minister, then, you know, I just don’t know how we come back from that in any kind of quick way.”

For some, the issue was so pervasive it defined the way they viewed the announcement of her resignation. A number of public figures referred to it in posts on Twitter:

#PrimeMinister @jacindaardern resigned today. I am not surprised nor do I blame her. Her treatment, the pile on, in the last few months has been disgraceful and embarrassing. All the bullies, the misogynists, the aggrieved. She deserved so much better. A great leader. Thanks PM! pic.twitter.com/7b1AhjBXrW

— Sam Neill (@TwoPaddocks) January 19, 2023

History will judge Jacinda Ardern as a remarkable leader.

She is genuinely kind and has an incredible intellect, she’s made more of a contribution than she will ever appreciate.

I can’t help but feel like we need to find better ways to support women and mothers in politics.

— Fleur Fitzsimons (@FleurFitzsimons) January 19, 2023

Apart from wartime, no New Zealand Prime Minister has faced the challenges Jacinda Ardern has handled. And certainly none has had to govern through the kind of deranged abuse and threat to which she has been subject in the past two years.

— Russell Brown (@publicaddress) January 19, 2023

No matter what you thought of her politics, the sustained personal attacks and hatred levelled at Jacinda was unlike anything I’d seen- from critiques of her motherhood to hysteria and conspiracy theories to threats of violence.

It’s not safe to be a woman in public light

— Mohamed Hassan (@mohamedwashere) January 19, 2023

And on the streets of Auckland, kilometres away from the dwindling crowd outside Napier’s conference centre, an emotional Tessa Williams from Taupō, perhaps summed up the view of those most disturbed by the vitriol Ardern received.

“She’s put up with a lot of really tough stuff. I mean, I was surprised that she has hung in kind of as long as she did,” Williams said.

“It was pretty rough how she’s been treated. Yeah, I think it’s a good decision. It was so hard for her. She did a really good job.

“It’s sad that people were so mean to her.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Political Roundup: Why Jacinda Ardern’s resignation changes everything

Should New Zealand have a snap election? That’s one of the questions arising out of the chaos of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s shock resignation.

There’s an increased realisation that everything has changed, and the old plans and assumptions for election year have suddenly evaporated. So, although Ardern has named an election date of 14 October there’s some good reason for the new prime minister to bring that forward to, say, March.

The big issue is one of electoral mandates. Will New Zealanders feel that Prime Minister Chris Hipkins – or whoever is chosen on Sunday – has a truly legitimate right to govern the country? Of course, constitutionally and legally the new PM will be able to govern – the role of PM is merely the choice of the ruling party. And, when Bill English took over from John Key a year out from the 2017 election, there was no expectation that an early election was necessary.

The problem for Labour is that it was elected as a majority government under the leadership of Ardern with 50 per cent support in 2020. People didn’t vote so much for Chris Hipkins, Kiri Allan, or Michael Wood. It was Ardern that won that support – more than any other party leader in New Zealand’s political history. It was Jacindamania, not Labourmania.

And now the Government only has the support of about 32 per cent of New Zealanders – about a third have been lost in two years. Hence even without a change of leader, Labour is facing a legitimacy challenge, and that’s only now forecast to get worse. So, when English took over from Key, the National Government was hardly in freefall, and it had coalition partners as a check on its power. That’s not the case in this situation, just nine months from the election.

What’s more, the economic recession, along with the multiple crises faced by New Zealand society – from housing, and inequality through to problems in climate, and law and order – are only going to accelerate as we get closer to 14 October.

And that is essentially why Ardern bailed out yesterday. She could see the writing on the wall, and was smart enough to get out before the going got much tougher, and her government was thrown out. It’s better to retire early as an undefeated prime minister than face the ignominy of being beaten by Christopher Luxon.

Of course, it wasn’t just Labour’s popularity that was plummeting – Ardern herself was losing supporters as well as creating more opponents amongst the public. Pollsters regularly ask the public about whether they have a favourable or unfavourable opinion of individual politicians.

The net favourables for Ardern – that is, favourable polling numbers minus unfavourable polling numbers – were extremely high for Ardern in her early years of power. David Farrar writes today that Ardern “spent the first two years at between +40% and +60% which is massive. John Key never got quite that high”. However, this shifted into the negative for the first time: “2022 saw the net favourability decline to +4% mid year, rebound to +12% and then a gradual decline until she hit -1% in the Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll released today”.

Calls for an early election

Broadcaster Rachel Smalley writes today in favour of an earlier election: “Labour will come under enormous public pressure to bring forward the election. It is unthinkable that we can sit in a rudderless void with Chris Hipkins or Michael Wood at the helm of the Government, lurching our way through a recession, and waiting for an election in October. Neither of those people, neither Hipkins nor Wood will make any decisions, we’ll just sit and tread water. Now the country, this is the reality, it needs a war-time leader and Labour does not have one waiting in the wings.”

According to Smalley, Ardern has given the new PM something of a hospital pass at a time of two separate types of crises: the crisis in the economy, and the crisis in the Labour Party that needs to reset itself to become re-electable in October. She suspects that the new PM will have to focus on the latter crisis, deprioritising the need to deal with the economy, housing, inequality, water reform, infrastructure and so forth. Better instead to go to the country and get a new mandate so that the government can concentrate on governing instead of electoral politics.

For an example of how changing prime ministers without an election can be a moral problem, look at the United Kingdom where the Conservative Government is onto its third prime minister this term. Once again, there was no legal or constitutional problem with Liz Truss taking over from Boris Johnson, and then Rishi Sunak after her, but without the public giving the leaders new mandates, the Government’s moral legitimacy has continued to be questioned.

The big problem, of course, is that Labour will want to double down on the need to provide stability, calm and certainty, especially in light of Ardern’s departure. The economic and global environment is already unsteady, and Labour has been campaigning on the basis that New Zealanders shouldn’t take risks this year, especially in their voting. And overall, the conservative advice to the Beehive will be to avoid anything that might look like panic or volatility.

Why would Prime Minister Chris Hipkins want to call an early election?

Having inherited an election date of 14 October, for the new prime minister – whoever it is, but presumably Chris Hipkins – it surely makes sense to hold onto power for as long as possible, with the hope of having as much time as possible to turn around Labour’s polling. Turkeys don’t vote for any early Christmas.

The counter to this is that things are likely to get much worse for the Labour Government over the coming year. This is especially the case in terms of the economy – with interest rates, and inflation picked by many to worsen through the year. It might therefore make sense to strike out early before the economy tanks further and the current gap between Labour and National widens to a place where re-election is seen as futile.

What the new prime minister needs more than anything is to reset the party and government in a truly surprising and bold way. This will require major changes in policy. There will be plenty of advice to the new PM to stand up to the Māori caucus, to shift further on things like co-governance and Three Waters. And someone like Hipkins, if he is PM, will be inclined to shift the Government further away from an association with what is perceived to be woke politics and culture wars.

Policy aside, a more substantial bold move to show bravery and chutzpah would be to call an early election. Yes, over-ruling Ardern’s election date would be something of a missive to the former PM, but this might be a useful way of the new leader telegraphing a difference from the old guard, and showing that they aren’t just going to be the proxy for the old boss. What’s more, there are some questions about whether Ardern should even have used her prerogative to set the election date unilaterally given that she was resigning – many might see that this should be a question for the new PM, not the old.

However, the most important point for Labour is that there is a real chance that an early election could be won by the new Labour PM. Almost certainly there will be some sort of honeymoon for the new leader. Yet this might well dissipate by 14 October. Hence the new Labour PM might have to choose between having a “snap election” or a “recession election”.

Although the conventional thinking is that a new leader needs plenty of time to stamp their mark and get known and liked by the electorate, this is no longer the case. Witness Ardern coming to the leadership in 2017 with just seven weeks before the election. A large element of momentum and urgency can work very well in politics.

Has Labour already lost the election?

The immediate response to Ardern’s departure has been to call the election for National. For example, writing in the wake of the shock announcement, political journalist Andrea Vance, said “Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson just conceded the election.” She argued that “Ardern has pulled the emergency eject lever, and Labour’s election hopes just crash landed”.

Business journalist Bernard Hickey writes this morning that “The odds are stacked much higher against them than they were 24 hours ago.” And according to Guardian writer Henry Cooke, “Labour MPs and supporters have every right to be furious…. She leaves the party in far worse shape to fight this election than it would have been under her leadership.” Leftwing commentator Josie Pagani also concludes: “Labour will be at much longer odds to be re-elected now.”

Newsroom journalist Sam Sachdeva suggests things could now get much worse for Labour: “the perception that Ardern is fleeing a sinking ship could accelerate that shift towards the right as people look to back a winner.”

Gamblers are also turning further against Labour with their money. Earlier in the week, the Australian betting sites were paying $2.20 for a Labour win in this year’s election, indicating a likely probability of only about 43 per cent. After Ardern’s shock announcement, the betting sites increased their payouts for a Labour victory to $3.80, suggesting only a 26 per cent likelihood of re-election.

A new PM could reset Labour for re-election

There is no consensus that Labour is doomed. Reporting on what Labour insiders are saying, Richard Harman says today, “Opinion within Labour circles last night was divided as to whether Ardern’s resignation would aid or harm its election chances.”

Rightwing commentator Matthew Hooton writes in the Herald today that Ardern’s resignation will make Labour more competitive, and he’s now forecasting a re-election as more likely than a National victory (although he thinks Labour would probably be re-elected in coalition with NZ First).

Hooton clearly thinks that Hipkins has what it takes to beat Luxon, and to attract a resurgent NZ First back into coalition with Labour after the election. But it’s Hipkins’ innate conservatism that makes him the right choice for Labour: “Hipkins is also more from the right of the Labour Party. No one who has met him would ever accuse him of being woke. To prove it, expect a Prime Minister Hipkins to carefully plan what the woke daily media will bellow are ‘mistakes’.”

Furthermore, Hooton says: “Hipkins is also not associated with policies Labour really needs to clear off the decks before the election. Those include aspects of Three Waters that are causing such angst in the provinces and, in Auckland, the unwanted and self-evidently unaffordable light-rail project”.

And Hipkins might be seen as the sort of PM that could deliver when Ardern couldn’t: “More substantively, he is orthodox on macroeconomic policy and has positioned himself as tough on law and order. Administratively, he is far more competent than Ardern but can also do a press conference to the required standard.”

The Herald’s Audrey Young is also sure that Hipkins is the right person to lead: “Hipkins is next best to Ardern and Robertson in terms of capability and credibility, and is the person most likely to cause the least pain for the public in terms of a transition to a new Prime Minister. If he puts up his hand for the Labour vote on Sunday, he should have no competition.” She suggests that such a candidate is obvious for Labour in this crisis: “This is the time for stability, competence, and safe hands.”

Stuff political editor Luke Malpass says that Hipkins is the obvious pick, not just because of his political skills and high profile but because he’s more rightwing: “He is also a centrist politician and further to the right of the Labour Party, putting him in a strong position to re-orient Labour to take on the economic challenges it will face this year.”

Labour’s big reset would also have to be substantial, according to Malpass: “Labour will also have to recalibrate its Three Waters policies as well as think seriously about its general rhetoric and positioning around co-governance. If Three Waters has shown anything, it is that race is still a live issue in New Zealand politics, even if it seems to have laid dormant for years.”

This is also why Labour might be uneasy about selecting Justice Minister Kiri Allan as PM. Writing for Newsroom today, Sam Sachdeva and Marc Daalder say: “Allan would be a high-risk, high-reward choice, given the extent to which co-governance has become a polarising topic and the potential for an unpleasant race-based campaign from some quarters.”

Allan would certainly be a very bold choice for Labour. And her ability to inspire enthusiasm for a generational change in leadership would be great, but possibly just too risky for a caucus that is probably more focused now on “winning votes than wokes”.

The symbolism of having Aotearoa’s first Māori Prime Minister will be very attractive to the more identity politics elements in Labour and the electorate, and the fact that she is young lesbian woman would also be a strong and positive narrative.

Instead, there will be many in the party telling Allan that it’s “not her time”, and to wait. The position of deputy prime minister is likely to be offered instead.

Huge pressure will be applied to caucus members to come together to find a new PM to anoint on Sunday, rather than go through what could be seen as a divisive vote.

But after a combo like Hipkins and Allan are anointed, they face the very big question of how to undertake the big political reset that Ardern was unable to do herself. While it’s unlikely that this will involve an early election, they will certainly need to consider whatever big and bold changes they can to show the public that this is a very different new government that deserves re-election. In this scenario, fortune will favour the brave.

Other items of interest and importance today

JACINDA ARDERN RESIGNS
Henry Cooke (Guardian): Jacinda Ardern’s shock exit imperils her legacy and her party
David Farrar: The rise and fall of Jacinda Ardern
Rachel Smalley (Today FM): Labour shouldn’t choose our next Prime Minister, New Zealand should
Taxpayers Union: New poll – PM goes negative as Labour hits new low
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Labour Party support reaches new low in poll
Josie Pagani (Stuff): Jacinda Ardern resigns: What was the point of all that?
Matthew Hooton (Herald): Resignation puts Labour back in election race (paywalled)
Rachel Smalley (NBR): The election must be brought forward (paywalled)
Tova O’Brien (Today FM): Jacinda Ardern wouldn’t have quit if she genuinely thought she could win
Peter Wilson (RNZ): Jacinda Ardern’s resignation announcement has changed the political landscape
Andrea Vance (Stuff): Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson just conceded the election
Duncan Garner (Today: Hugely tough call, but Jacinda Ardern had to go
Bernard Hickey (Interest): A tribute to a tragic PM
Chris Trotter: Jacinda Resigns
Luke Malpass (Stuff): Jacinda Ardern resigns: Could Labour’s new leader save the party?
Luke Malpass (Stuff): A remarkable leader, Jacinda Ardern’s exit leaves Labour in dangerous limbo
Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Ardern’s pared back life leaves Labour in limbo
Claire Trevett (Herald): The bombshell of PM Jacinda Ardern’s resignation – why and what happens next for Labour?
Pattrick Smellie (BusinessDesk): Ardern’s resignation hands the 2023 election to National (paywalled)
Jane Patterson (RNZ): Tough task ahead for Labour as it seeks re-election without Ardern at helm
Richard Harman (Politik): Labour — nothing can be taken for granted (paywalled)
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): Helen Clark’s comments about Jacinda Ardern ‘naive’ and ‘condescending’, political commentator says
Grant Duncan (The Conversation): Ardern’s resignation as New Zealand prime minister is a game changer for the 2023 election
1News: Jessica Mutch McKay Analysis: A surprise Ardern’s resignation came so soon
Jenna Lynch (Newshub): Gargantuan task ahead for next Labour leader as Jacinda Ardern steps down
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): Jacinda Ardern resigns: a legacy of towering leadership, and a nightmare for Labour
1 News: Helen Clark denounces ‘hatred, vitriol’ aimed at Ardern
Erin Gourley (Stuff): ‘Unprecedented hatred and vitriol’: Helen Clark on Ardern’s resignation
Herald: Prime Minister ‘driven from politics’ due to ‘constant personalisation and vilification’ – Te Pāti Māori
Herald Editorial: Jacinda Ardern quits as Prime Minister – opinion on her legacy will likely always be divided (paywalled)
Anusha Bradley (RNZ): The hatred and vitriol Jacinda Ardern endured ‘would affect anybody’
Linda Clark (BusinessDesK): A PM steps down: we allowed this to happen (paywalled)
Nadine Roberts (Stuff): Jacinda Ardern: An inspirational role model and victim of ingrained misogyny
Vera Alves (Herald): I cannot believe Jacinda Ardern didn’t quit earlier
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern sums up how we all feel in January: I’m over it
Stephen Minto (Daily Blog): Jacinda betrayed
Steven Cowan: When the going gets tough
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Jacinda’s Bombshell Resignation: Political Winners, Losers & Predictions
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): We broke our Prime Minister – New Zealand Civil Society is the loser this day
No Right Turn: An amazing disappointment
Matthew Scott (Newsroom): The unbearable weight of being Prime Minister
Mike Munro (Herald): Jacinda Ardern’s resignation is no victory for social media trolls (paywalled)

LEADERSHIP CONTEST
Audrey Young: Grant Robertson, Chris Hipkins the only replacements (paywalled)
Herald: Who will replace Jacinda Ardern? Megan Woods not in the running, Labour hopefuls quizzed on PM aspirations
Ireland Hendry-Tennent (Newshub): What Labour MPs have said when asked if they want the top job
Amelia Wade (Newshub): Jacinda Ardern resignation: Chris Hipkins tells Newshub ‘consensus’ about new Labour leader would be ‘far better for NZ’
Rachel Sadler (Newshub): Chris Hipkins ‘obvious’ choice for new Labour leader – political commentator Bryce Edwards
David Farrar: What NZers think of top Labour MPs
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): How will Labour elect a new leader, and who has the advantage (paywalled)
Felix Desmarais (1News): Waiting in the wings: Who could replace Ardern?
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Labour Māori caucus to meet Saturday, ahead of Sunday’s vote for a new leader
Joseph Los’e (Herald): Jacinda Ardern quits: Māori want a Māori as next Prime Minister
Joel Maxwell (Stuff): Labour’s caucus needs to make sure the next prime minister is Māori
Damien Venuto (Herald): The Front Page: As Ardern departs, will next Labour leader simply be a placeholder?
Sam Sachdeva and Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Five MPs who could be the next Prime Minister
Thomas Manch, Nikki Macdonald and Anna Whyte (Stuff): Jacinda Ardern resigns: Who are the contenders to be New Zealand’s next prime minister?
Brent Edwards (NBR): What happens now Jacinda Ardern has resigned as PM? (paywalled)
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Ardern resigns: Who are the frontrunners for Labour leadership?
Stewart Sowman-Lund and Duncan Greive (Spinoff): Who will be the next prime minister? The Spinoff’s official odds
Ireland Hendry-Tennent and Amelia Wade (Newshub): Michael Wood, Chris Hipkins and Kiri Allan: The Labour MPs being touted as potential future leaders
Herald: Jacinda Ardern quits: The contenders to be the next Prime Minister
RNZ: What you need to know: Who takes over from Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister when she steps down?

ARDERN’S LEGACY AND FUTURE
Geoffrey Miller (Democracy Project): Jacinda Ardern’s outsized New Zealand foreign policy legacy
Mitch McCann (Newshub): Could Jacinda Ardern be destined for the United Nations, and what are her chances?
Michael Daly (Stuff): Difficult Conversations: Was Jacinda Ardern actually a good prime minister?
Kate Newton and Felippe Rodriques (Stuff): Jacinda Ardern’s prime ministership, explained in six charts
Tom Pullar-Strecker and Esther Taunton (Stuff): What is Ardern’s economic legacy?
Tom Dillane (Herald): Former National PM Jim Bolger says Jacinda Ardern set for high-profile global roles
Tim Watkin (Pundit): Jacinda Ardern: “For Me, It’s Time”. So How Will She Be Remembered?
Morgan Godfery (Guardian): In five momentous years Jacinda Ardern became New Zealand’s most important postwar prime minister
Herald: Jacinda Ardern quits: The highs and lows of the Prime Minister’s political career
Chris Keall (Herald): Jacinda Ardern’s mixed legacy with The Christchurch Call and social media (paywalled)
Jenna Lynch (Newshub): Jacinda Ardern resignation: Her meteoric rise – and the bombshell announcement that shocked New Zealand
Madeleine Chapman (Spinoff): Jacinda Ardern never wanted to be prime minister
Stuff: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern: NZ’s leader in pictures
Herald: The perks PMs get to keep after they leave top job

REACTION
RNZ: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern resigns: Politicians and New Zealanders pay tribute
Jamie Ensor, Jenna Lynch and Amelia Wade (Newshub): Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern resigning in February, announces election 2023 will be held on October 14
Thomas Manch, Anna Whyte and Katie Doyle (Stuff): ‘Thank you Jacinda’: Political leaders respond to PM’s shock resignation
Luke Kirkness and Laura Smith (Bay of Plenty Times): Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stands down – Bay of Plenty politicians shocked
Josh Butler (Guardian): ‘Like a sister’: Australia will miss Jacinda Ardern but trans-Tasman ties likely to stay strong
Ireland Hendry-Tennent (Newshub): Political jabs and mountains of praise: Kiwis react to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s shock resignation
Will Trafford (Whakaata Māori): ‘Leader in a crisis’ – Ardern resigns
Michael Neilson (Herald): ‘That’s manaaki’: Māori leaders on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s legacy for tangata whenua
Ripu Bhatia, Katie Doyle and Maxine Jacobs (Stuff): ‘Devastated’: Māori leaders praise Jacinda Ardern following resignation
1News: Māori King ‘grateful’ for Ardern’s work with Kīngitanga
Tureiti Moxon (Herald): Māoridom didn’t always see eye to eye with PM Jacinda Ardern but had tremendous respect for her
RNZ: Shock and sadness as Pacific leaders react to Jacinda Ardern’s resignation announcement
Steven Walton (Stuff): Christchurch will remember Ardern as ‘mother of compassion’ after terror attacks
Jenée Tibshraeny and Tamsyn Parker (Herald): Jacinda Ardern quits as Prime Minister: Business leaders, market analysts react (paywalled)
Erin Gourley and Marty Sharpe (Stuff): NZers react with sadness, empathy to Jacinda Ardern’s resignation
1News: Mixed emotions for Kiwis following Ardern’s shock resignation
Te Aorewa Rolleston (Waikato Times): Jacinda Ardern will be sorely but not unanimously missed in her hometown, Morrinsville
Herald: Celebrities sing the praises of resigning NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern

INTERNATIONAL REACTION, COVERAGE
Tom Chodor (Unherd): What was the point of Jacinda Ardern?
Tom Slater (Spiked): Good riddance to Saint Jacinda
Damien Cave (News York Times): How Covid’s bitter divisions tarnished a liberal icon (paywalled)
Fraser Nelson (Daily Telegraph/Herald): St Jacinda’s global cheerleaders can’t acknowledge the truth about her fall
Herald: Jacinda Ardern quits: World leaders praise ‘a true stateswoman’ after resignation
RNZ: Jacinda Ardern resigns: Reactions from around the world
1News: ‘A jolt around the world’ – how the world reacted to PM’s resignation
Stuff: ‘A hero to left-leaning women’: World media reacts to Jacinda Ardern’s resignation
Emma Clark-Dow (Stuff): ‘Intellect and strength’: World reacts to Jacinda Ardern resignation
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern resigns: The world reacts
Stewart Sowman-Lund (Spinoff): ‘An inspiration’ or ‘good riddance’? The world reacts to Jacinda Ardern’s resignation
Daniel Dunkley (BusinessDesk): The world’s media stunned by Ardern resignation (paywalled)
Samantha Lock and Jon Henley (Guardian): ‘An inspiring leader’: world reacts to Jacinda Ardern’s resignation as New Zealand PM
Jessie Yeung and Hilary Whiteman (CNN): New Zealand leader Jacinda Ardern announces shock resignation before upcoming election
Ainsley Thomson (Bloomberg): The Highs and Lows of Jacinda Ardern’s Time as Prime Minister
Lucy Craymer (Reuters): Jacinda Ardern steps aside as NZ PM with ‘no more in the tank’
Tess McClure (Guardian): Jacinda Ardern resigns as prime minister of New Zealand
Gaby Hinsliff (Guardian): Jacinda Ardern knew when to quit. Unlike some other politicians I could mention
Van Badham (Guardian): Jacinda Ardern’s graceful departure is the personification of modern democratic ideals
Tess McClure (Guardian): From stardust to an empty tank: one-of-a-kind leader Jacinda Ardern knew her time was up
Judith Woods (Daily Telegraph/Herald): Jacinda Ardern resignation shows how hard it is being a woman in a man’s world – opinion

RESIGNATION ANNOUNCEMENT
Anna Whyte (Stuff): How Jacinda Ardern’s Labour team found out her decision to retire as prime minister
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Ardern’s rare, personal candour in shock resignation
Claire Trevett (Herald): Watch: Tearful Jacinda Ardern steps down as PM – ‘I no longer have the energy’; Robertson won’t stand
John Hartevelt (RNZ): Jacinda Ardern quits: The bombshell resignation no-one saw coming
Glen McConnell (Stuff): ‘Let’s finally get married:’ Jacinda Ardern’s heartfelt message to family
Herald: Jacinda Ardern’s heart-warming words to Clarke Gayford in resignation speech
Herald: Jacinda Ardern resigns: PM looks forward to being there when daughter Neve starts school
Newshub: Labour Party erupts in rapturous applause and singing in emotional tribute for Jacinda Ardern

NATIONAL PARTY
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): National’s new mantra? It’s a lot like Let’s Do This
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): National reshuffle: Chris Bishop, Judith Collins and Todd Muller the big winners
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): National caucus reshuffle: Barbara Kuriger falls, Judith Collins rockets back up list
Anna Whyte (Stuff): Christopher Luxon announces National caucus reshuffle, new portfolios to start election year
RNZ: National announces caucus reshuffle as Napier retreat kicks off
RNZ: Kuriger says no plans to step down after family scandal aired
Stephen Ward (Stuff): Hamilton’s Tama Potaka picks up Māori development and social housing roles for National

ECONOMY, COST OF LIVING
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Inland Revenue asks more than 80,000 people to return cost of living payment
Brianna Mcilraith (Stuff): Food prices rising faster than at any time since 1990 with no clear end in sight
Esther Taunton (Stuff): Tomatoes up 136%, spud prices soaring: Mind-boggling price changes seen over past three years
John Weekes (Herald): Food prices skyrocket: Largest annual increase in 32 years as inflation bites hard
Alka Prasad (Herald): ‘Serious inflation problem’: Food prices highest in 32 years (paywalled)
Herald Editorial: The economic slowdown has arrived (paywalled)
Herald: Some so-called supermarket specials are a dog’s breakfast, consumer group says
David Hill (Local Democracy Reporting): Record demand for food parcels in North Canterbury
BusinessDesk: Household wealth fell in Sept quarter even as savings rocketed (paywalled)

HOUSING
RNZ: Largest fall in national average house prices in over 15 years
Tom Hunt (Stuff): Two-thirds of Wellington houses bought at market peak now in negative equity, research shows
Miriam Bell (Stuff): Here are the cities with house price falls bigger than in the GFC
Jonathan Killick (Stuff): Paddock or protected wetland? 102 Auckland homes held up by technicality

MEDIA
RNZ: Morning Report reveals television presenter Ingrid Hipkiss as new co-host
Stuff: Ingrid Hipkiss has been named as new host of RNZ’s Morning Report replacing Susie Ferguson
Herald: AM presenter Bernadine Oliver-Kerby won’t return with show next week

HEALTH
Ripu Bhatia (Stuff): Māori child health inequities cost society over $170m annually, research shows

OTHER
Frances Chin (Stuff): Corrections paid consultants more than $300k during restructure
Gordon Campbell: On Ardern, business confidence, and the worth of sanctions
Lynn Charlton (Herald): Stop calling rodeo deaths accidents (paywalled)
Grant Bradley (Herald): Airport security alert: Pilots ‘appalled’ after passenger evades screening before Air NZ flight (paywalled)
Damon Salesa (Herald): Legacy of Covid on education will last a decade (paywalled)
Ripu Bhatia (Stuff): Kaupapa Māori approach helps Maori learners, report finds
Stephen Forbes (Local Democracy Reporting): Rubbish dumped at Ihumātao piled as high as the trees
No Right Turn: Are the police following the law on DNA?
Bob McCoskrie: The Government pushes forward with first step of controversial ‘hate speech’ laws
Brooke van Velden (Herald): Our roading infrastructure needs fixing asap (paywalled)

Zelensky began with a friendly “kia ora” before saying he would offer New Zealand the opportunity to take the lead in pushing for peace.

“Today, this anti-war coalition has more than 100 countries, those who support the fundamental principle of international law and the UN Charter,” he said.

“Those who do everything possible to hold Russia’s war criminals accountable.”

He said New Zealand was one of the first countries to support Ukraine against Russia’s aggressive invasion and he recognised New Zealand imposed sanctions.

“Let me offer you one more thing, various dictators and aggressors — they always fail to realise that the strength of the free world is not about someone becoming large or becoming full of missiles but in the fact that everyone knows how to unite and act decisively and make a unique contribution to the common cause.

“Perhaps the time has come for your country to make such a unique contribution.”

President Zelensky’s address to the NZ Parliament today. Video: NZ Parliament TV

Peace plan 10 points
He said this could be one of the 10 points in the plan he laid out at the G19 Summit in Indonesia:

• Radiation and nuclear safety
• Food security
• Energy security
• Release of prisoners and deportees
• Implementation of the UN Charter
• Withdrawal of Russian troops and cessation of hostilities
• Justice
• Ecocide and the protection of the environment
• Prevention of escalation
• Confirmation of the end of the war

“Each of these points can remove one or another of Russia’s aggression … I propose to convene a special summit in the coming months.”

He called upon New Zealand to support this formula and to start consolidating the world around the eighth point, environmental security, saying many people did not consider the impact of war on the environment and it was one aspect New Zealand society approached wisely.

“You can’t rebuild destroyed nature, just as you can’t rebuild destroyed lives.”

“There’s no true peace where the consequences of war could be there in the form of poisoned groundwater that may destroy normal lives in several countries. There’s no true peace where ecocide has taken place and its consequences have not been neutralised.”

He said to this day, the world had no strong experience in overcoming the destructive impact of war on the environment.

‘We will win’
“We will liberate our land. We will win this war. I am confident that we will return freedom and security to all Ukrainians wherever they live.”

“Ngā mihi, Slava Ukraini (glory to Ukraine).”

Zelensky is just the second head of a foreign government to address Parliament after Australia’s Julia Gillard in 2011.

The Ukrainian leader’s message to New Zealand comes as the government announced new sanctions on Iranian individuals and an entity involved in the manufacture and supply of drones to Russia.

Those sanctioned today include two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, the Armed Forces General Staff chair Mohammad Hossein Bagheri and drone manufacturer Shahed Aviation Industries.

He has previously spoken to other parliaments, including in the UK, US, European Union, and Australia, appealing for assistance and support in defending Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.

In September, Zelensky addressed world leaders at the United Nations, demanding a special UN tribunal impose “just punishment” on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, including financial penalties and stripping Moscow of its veto power in the Security Council.

Ardern announces further humanitarian aid
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in response thanked him on behalf of New Zealand and said taking the time to speak today was a sacrifice when he was leading his people through a crisis “and one we do not take lightly”.

She hoped he heard loudly and clearly from New Zealand that Ukraine’s was not a forgotten war, and the Parliament on the other side of the world had come together to condemn Russia’s war.

“Our support for Ukraine was not determined by geography, it was not determined by history or by diplomatic ties or relationships — our judgment was a simple one: we asked ourselves the question ‘what if it was us’.”

She also referred to the breach of the international rules-based order and “the misuse of multilateral institutions”.

Running through New Zealand’s commitments to the Ukrainian war effort, she made a further announcement of $3 million of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, through the International Committee of the Red Cross, as the population faces severe hardships over winter.

This would cover items like medical supplies and equipment, power transformers and generators to cope with blackouts, and essential winter items for vulnerable families in Ukraine, like food, water and sanitation and hygiene items.

Ardern acknowledged the plan laid out by Zelensky today, and said the war “must not become a gateway to a more polarised and dangerous world for generations to come”.

Long-term impacts
She acknowledged Zelensky’s urging to counter the long-term impacts of war including with the environment, saying New Zealand had a long history of reconstruction post-conflict.

“That includes remediation such as dealing with unexploded ordinances. We will be with you as you seek peace but we will also be with you as you rebuild.”

She paid a special tribute to Zelensky himself, saying he had been unrelenting in his support of his people and coordinated an international response in support of the rules-based order.

“Kia kaha, kia māia, kia manawanui – slava Ukraini.”

In a statement, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said the new contribution “comes as the Russian military has stepped up its deliberate targeting of critical national infrastructure, further deepening the severe humanitarian crisis caused by the illegal invasion.”

“Russia’s targeting of energy and other civilian infrastructure is deplorable. As Ukraine faces a harsh winter, Putin’s actions have further disrupted electricity supply, and are harming the health, safety and well-being of already vulnerable communities,” the statement said.

The aid is in addition to almost $8m in humanitarian help already provided, and $48m of military spending including on training deployments, donation of surplus equipment, and procurement of weapons and ammunition.

Other party leaders speak
Opposition National Party leader Christopher Luxon said it was a great honour and tremendous privilege for the Parliament to hear Zelensky’s address, “and we all appreciate the opportunity to say to you ‘kia kaha’, which in our indigenous Māori language means ‘stay strong’.”

He said for those nations that valued democracy, national sovereignty and borders, and uphold the international rule of law the choice was simple.

“New Zealand is one of those countries. Confronted with brutality or diplomacy, autocracy or democracy, darkness or light, there was nothing to discuss except how to individually and collectively to support Ukraine.”

He said the war was a moral battle that posed an existential threat to Ukraine and it could not lose.

“You have been our generation’s Winston Churchill, and since those Russian tanks crossed Ukraine’s border, you have been unwavering in your determination that Ukraine will win this war that it did not want and it did not start.

“Of all the miscalculations Vladimir Putin has made — and there are many — underestimating your resolve and the impact of the strength of your leadership and the words — your words — would have in rallying Ukraine and the world has perhaps been the biggest.”

He said the death of every single Ukrainian was a tragedy, and the greatest regret of the war would be terrible loss of life that left tens of thousands of families bereft.

Luxon also spoke of the need for a reconstruction programme, because “the loss of homes and communities and critical infrastructure is also incalculable”. He said he could not imagine circumstances where New Zealand was not a part of that effort.

Green Party co-leader James Shaw said Russia’s invasion was “as barbaric as it is illegal”.

“It is apparent that there have been and continues to be a multitude of war crimes perpetuated on the Ukrainian people by the Russian forces.

“Were President Putin to be successful, the temporary violence of war would morph into the permanent violence of subjugation — perhaps even genocide.”

He said he applauded the Ukrainians’ efforts to minimise harm to civilians, however he urged that any future calls for military support come before the Parliament — not just the government.

“As a member of the Green Party I have a fundamental commitment to non-violence … the situation in Ukraine remains impossibly difficult in ways that we in Aotearoa New Zealand cannot possibly imagine.”

He said there were people on every continent still suffering from violence and subjugation, and emphasised the importance of universal human rights.

ACT leader David Seymour said he wanted Zelensky and the Ukrainian people “to know that on the other side of the world people care deeply about your struggle against evil”.

“We understand that a dictator attacking our democracy matters to New Zealand, your people are not just fighting for their lives but for all our freedom and democracy and I want you to know that your leadership and courage inspires us.”

He spoke of the New Zealanders who had gone to fight in Ukraine on their own initiative, and the funds raised for the defenders.

“Our donors were particularly pleased to buy luggage tags made from bits of aluminium from downed Russian jets – what great initiative under fire.”

But his comments also took a more political turn, saying the opposition had pushed for the government to do more.

“More sanctions, more refugee places, more lethal aid, and we’ll keep pushing them from this side of our Parliament and if our government changes before you win the New Zealand government will do a lot more than the $3 million you saw today.

“For now, please let me say that you are right and you are fighting against evil for all our freedom, and we back you not only in word but in deed. Slava Ukraini.”

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said they supported the kōrero of the Green Party.

“We have little to say today, all the teachings have been learnt of former occasions of war,” she said, quoting Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi, the prophets from Taranaki.

“We have been living together quietly, there will be nothing but mate — but death — for generations to come. We are small in numbers but we are strong. We are fighting not for part of peace but for the whole of peace.

“We today have one role, one role only, and that is to fight for peace.”

She said that as at Parihaka, Te Pāti Māori would continue to fight to uphold peace and make sure there was no suffering the young and coming generations could be ashamed of.

She and fellow co-leader Rawiri Waititi, along with other MPs around the House, concluded with a waiata written in World War II.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A Pasifika health leader hopes the Royal Commission into the Covid-19 pandemic will look into the equity of the response and resource allocation.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday announced a Royal Commission into the government’s covid-19 response which will be chaired by Professor Tony Blakely, an epidemiologist working at the University of Melbourne.

He is joined by former National Party MP Hekia Parata, and the previous secretary to Treasury, John Whitehead, as commissioners.

Pasifika Futures chief executive Debbie Sorensen said Pasifika people were essentially left to form their own response during the earlier stages of the pandemic.

That was despite Pasifika people working a large proportion of jobs in MIQ facilities and at the airport and other front line locations, she said.

Many affected Pacific families experienced a great deal of hardship, she said.

It was important for the inquiry to look at the covid-19 response in regards to specific communities, she said.

Slowness of response
“We’re really clear that equity in the response and in the resource allocation is an important consideration.”

One issue was the slowness of the government’s response to both Pacific and Māori communities during the height of the pandemic, she said.

“Advice was provided to the government, you know cabinet papers provided advice on specific responses for our communities and that advice was ignored.”

An important aspect of the inquiry should be reviewing how that advice was given to the government, its response to it and how the government’s sought more information, she said.

The inquiry’s initial scope appeared to be very narrow, but it could be broadened as it went along, Sorensen said.

“The impact on mental health and the ongoing economic burden for our communities is immense — you know we have a whole generation of young people who have not continued their education because they were required to go in to work.”

Sorensen said often young people had to work because they were the only person in their family who had a job at that time due to covid-19.

Mental health demand
The pandemic also increased demand for mental health services which were already under pressure, she said.

Anyone who was unwell unlikely to be able to get an appointment within six to eight months which was shameful, she said.

Sorensen would have preferred the inquiry had been announced earlier, but it was an opportunity to better prepare for the future, she said.

But Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority, chief medical officer Dr Rawiri McKree Jansen told Morning Report he had some concerns that the probe into the covid-19 response was coming too soon to gain a full picture.

The pandemic was ongoing and starting the inquiry so early may obstruct a complete view of it, he said.

“I understand that there’s people champing at the bit and [saying] we should’ve done it before but it’s very difficult to do that and adequately learn the lessons.”

Understanding how to get a proper pandemic response was in everyone’s interest, but the pandemic was now still in its third wave, he said.

About to begin
Nevertheless, the inquiry was about to get underway and it could make a large contribution if it was done well, he said.

“I’m sure there will be many Māori communities that want to have voice in the inquiry and you know contribute to a better understanding of how we can manage pandemics really well.

“We’ve had pandemics before and they’ve been absolutely tragic. We’ve got this pandemic and the outcome for us is something like two to two-and-a-half times the rate of hospitalisations and deaths, so Māori communities are fundamentally very interested in bedding in the learnings that we’ve achieved in the pandemic.”

Dr Jansen hoped the inquiry would provide enduring information about managing pandemics with a very clear focus on Māori and how to support the best outcomes for the Māori population.

Inquiry’s goal next pandemic
The head of the Royal Commission said the review needed to put New Zealand in better position to respond next time a pandemic hits.

Professor Blakely said the breadth of experience and skills of the commissioners was welcome, and would help them to cover the wide scope of the Inquiry, ranging from the health response and legislative decisions, to the economic response.

Reviewing the response to the pandemic was a big job, he said.

“There’s already 75 reports done so far, I think about 1700 recommendations from those reports, New Zealand’s not the only country that’s been affected by this cause it’s a global epidemic, so there’s lots of other reports.”

The inquiry panel would have to sit at the top of all that work that had already been done “and pull it altogether from the perspective of Aotearoa New Zealand and what would help best there.

The inquiry needed to make New Zealand was prepared for a pandemic with good testing, good contact tracing and good tools that the Reserve Bank could use to support citizens in the time of a pandemic, Professor Blakely said.

“Our job is to try and create a situation where those tools are as good as possible, there’s frameworks to use when you’ve entered another pandemic, which will occur at some stage we just don’t know when.”

Professor Blakely said he was flying to New Zealand next week and would meet with Hekia Parata and John Whitehead to start thinking about the shape of the inquiry going forward.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz