Essay by Eric Worrall
This isn’t fair – take her back New Zealand, she’s your problem.
Dame Jacinda Ardern is moving to Australia.
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In a statement, a spokesman for Dame Jacinda said her family had been travelling “for a few years now”.
“For the moment, they’re basing themselves out of Australia — they have work there, and it brings the added bonus of more time back home in New Zealand,” the spokesperson said.
Dame Jacinda, Mr Gayford and their seven-year-old daughter, Neve Gayford, had been living in the United States where Dame Jacinda was working for Harvard University.
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She also released a memoir, A Different Kind of Power, last year and a children’s book, Mum’s Busy Work.
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-26/former-new-zealand-prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-moves-australia/106392862
Jacinda inflicted some impressive damage on the New Zealand economy, during her term of office;
Jacinda Ardern leaves mixed legacy as she resigns as New Zealand prime minister
January 19, 20238:04 PM GMT+10Updated January 19, 2023
Jan 19 (Reuters) – Jacinda Ardern has put tiny New Zealand on the map in her five years as prime minister, becoming a global icon for left-leaning politics and women in leadership, even as she struggled at home with the economy and COVID-19 restrictions.
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Launching a global campaign to end online hate, she has often herself been a target of right-wing extremists online.
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While Ardern’s popularity rose internationally, at home she has faced growing political headwinds, struggling to prove that her leadership extended beyond crisis management and kindness.
Her ratings have dropped in recent months on a worsening housing crisis, rising living costs and mortgage rates, and growing concerns about crime. She remains, however, more popular that her rivals.
Despite her promises of transformational leadership, Ardern’s affordable housing programmes have been set back by blunders. …
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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/new-zealands-ardern-leaves-legacy-kindness-disappointments-2023-01-19/
For me the low point of the Jacinda age was her attempt to link the horrific Christchurch gun massacre to a failure to censor climate skeptics.
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The lessons of COVID are in many ways the same as the lessons of climate change.
When crisis is upon us, we cannot and will not solve these issues on our own.
The next pandemic will not be prevented by one country’s efforts but by all of ours. Climate action will only ever be as successful as the least committed country, as they pull down the ambition of the collective.
I am not suggesting though that we rely on the goodwill of others to make progress.
We need a dual strategy. One where we push for collective effort but we also use our multilateral tools to make progress.
That’s why on pandemic preparedness we support efforts to develop a new global health legal instrument, strengthened international health regulations and a strong and empowered World Health Organization.
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On March 15, 2019, New Zealand experienced a horrific terrorist attack on its Muslim community.
More than 50 people were killed as they prayed. The attack was live-streamed on a popular social media platform in an effort to gain notoriety, and to spread hate.
At that time, the ability to thwart those goals was limited. And the chances of Government alone being able to resolve this gap was equally challenging.
That’s why, alongside President Emmanuel Macron, we created the Christchurch Call to Action.
The Call community has worked together to address terrorism and violent extremist content online. As this important work progresses, we have demonstrated the impact we can have by working together collaboratively.
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This week we launched an initiative alongside companies and non-profits to help improve research and understanding of how a person’s online experiences are curated by automated processes. This will also be important in understanding more about mis and disinformation online. A challenge that we must as leaders address.
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As leaders, we are rightly concerned that even those most light-touch approaches to disinformation could be misinterpreted as being hostile to the values of free speech we value so highly.
But while I cannot tell you today what the answer is to this challenge, I can say with complete certainty that we cannot ignore it. To do so poses an equal threat to the norms we all value.
After all, how do you successfully end a war if people are led to believe the reason for its existence is not only legal but noble? How do you tackle climate change if people do not believe it exists? How do you ensure the human rights of others are upheld, when they are subjected to hateful and dangerous rhetoric and ideology?
The weapons may be different but the goals of those who perpetuate them are often the same. To cause chaos and reduce the ability of others to defend themselves. To disband communities. To collapse the collective strength of countries who work together.
But we have an opportunity here to ensure that these particular weapons of war do not become an established part of warfare.
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Read more: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/09/full-speech-jacinda-ardern-addresses-un-general-assembly.html
A video of Jacinda’s speech is available here.
And now she’s coming to Australia to work. While relocating to Australia is the choice of many New Zealanders fleeing their train wreck economy, including some good friends, I think I speak on behalf of a large number of Australians in saying we’ve already filled our quota of radical green lunatics.
