Gareth Hughes: One day we will look at Ardern as one of our best leaders

Thursday, 6 April 2023

Jacinda Ardern delivers her valedictory speech to Parliament on Wednesday.

Gareth Hughes is a former Green MP, and works for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa. He is not a member of any political party.

OPINION: Jacinda Ardern blazed across our skies, dominating New Zealand’s politics for five years with her unique mix of stardust and substance. What goes up must come down and despite an unprecedented MMP majority and every chance of winning a third term she decided to focus on family and continue her mahi on a global stage.

As a Green MP I followed her into Parliament a year later, aged a year younger, and as a generational contemporary it was fascinating watching her political rise. She was a remarkable politician and surprisingly a reluctant Prime Minister.

In her valedictory speech she described herself as a ‘conviction politician.’ A truly-gifted communicator, she was smart, warm and passionate. It saw her connect with audiences – even unsympathetic ones – and shine.

'NZ's in good hands': Jacinda Ardern gives her last speech to Parliament, taking a look back over the eventful years of her leadership.

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Jacinda Ardern’s portrait in the halls of Parliament.

That is a rare talent, even among politicians. Her empathetic approach and communication skills were sneered at by opponents as ‘politics-lite’; but everyone saw how crucial those traits were when it came to grappling with multiple emergencies as Prime Minister. She no doubt would rather be remembered for her child poverty and climate change work, but it’s shining in a crisis that stands out.

There was something special about her from her earliest days in the public eye. Most of her political career was as an opposition MP when Labour came across like cold sausage rolls, but even in her party’s most unpopular days she radiated youth, optimism and warmth. I watched her savvily craft a personal brand apart from Labour. This meant she could authentically represent rejuvenation when handed at the 11th hour what had looked like an unwinnable election in 2017.

The fact she hadn’t sought it, or schemed for it, resonated with voters. The impact was immediate, and National saw their likely win slip into dust.

She leaves an impressive legacy as Prime Minister. We are still too close to the hurly-burly of day-to-day politics to put this in perspective, but I believe in the future we will look to her as one of our best leaders.

Not in the same pantheon as Richard Seddon or Peter Fraser for their impact on the country, but high up on the next tier. She brought in a universal child payment for parents; ushered in Fair Pay agreements for workers; healthy home standards for renters; winter energy payments for a million Kiwis; New Zealand History into the curriculum; free school lunches and period products for students, and a policy foundation for climate action.

Labour’s website documents a list of achievements much longer than this, but the last five years have felt like running from crisis to crisis struggling to take a breath. So it’s perhaps even more remarkable that she was able to deliver as much as she did.

What other Prime Minister outside of wartime has had to deal with so much and then, did it so well? We can point to thousands of New Zealanders who are alive today because of her bold, swift actions and leadership over Covid.

In 2020, a month after Covid arrived, she recorded a staggering 83% approval rating. Her message of kindness, Wellbeing Budgets and empathetic responses to March 15 and Whakaari White Island made her a global beacon, especially then, as the antithesis of Trump.

She was our first rock-star PM who did more than any predecessor to put Aotearoa on the world stage. Since leaving politics I work for an international progressive economic organisation and all my colleagues around the world were shocked that she was resigning. How could it be?

Gareth Hughes: “At her heart Ardern was a progressive, incrementalist politician. Conservative sometimes even.”

They only saw the global headlines about banning offshore oil drilling, creating our first Indigenous holiday and doing economics differently, not least the cover of Vogue.

They didn’t see the anger and polarisation post-Covid, the overt misogyny, the division over co-governance and the miss-match many people felt that delivery wasn’t matching rhetoric.

To stay popular politicians often try to under-promise and over-deliver. Early on Ardern promised transformation – an empowered state would build 100,000 homes, new legislation would lift children out of poverty and climate change would become modern New Zealand’s nuclear-free moment. It was heady stuff and counter to the cautious incremental language of the previous decades.

I don’t believe Ardern’s mistake was that she over-promised, rather that she didn’t use her power and position to deliver these grand aims. She presided over a decline in child poverty stats, but she could have used her unprecedented majority to eliminate it. She hamstrung herself by ruling out taxing unearned wealth that could have addressed inequality and the low-tax, low-rates hole we find ourselves stuck in that sees crumbling social and civic infrastructure.

She wore Grant Robertson’s Budget Responsibility Rules like a fiscal straitjacket that severely limited what the government could achieve. She was stunning in an immediate crisis, less so facing slower-moving systemic crises.

At her heart Ardern was a progressive, incrementalist politician. Conservative sometimes even. Her talent for words and deft use of symbols could have helped explain the positives for everyone in Aotearoa from co-governance and her voice would have been decisive in the cannabis referendum.

She regularly cited the pain imposed by Rogernomics rapid change as a reason why change had to be slow and measured. Ardern worked hard to improve the country as she found it; she didn’t see her job to lead a revolution to transform it.

New Zealand is overdue for a big transformational change moment in the order of the 1890s, 1930s or 1980s and it will be another leader who leads us through it.

Her arrival upended electoral calculations as did her departure. Chris Hipkins and Labour are up again and leading in the polls. National have yet to recalibrate to the new Bread and Butter era and find the momentum they had late last year. Ardern was our greenest Prime Minister and the Greens will be quietly happy to have less competition now.

Jacinda escapes all that politics now and gets to be a private citizen spending time with her family. I know as an MP and dad to young kids it was difficult – I can’t imagine how much harder it would also be to be mum and Prime Minister. I hope she enjoys the next stage of her career and continues to passionately advance her convictions.