Ardern’s missed moment

I attended Jacinda Ardern’s press conference when she stepped down as prime minister, and saw a leader who was composed to the end. But when she walked away I caught a glimpse behind the sunglasses she wore as her bodyguards shepherded her through the media scrum. I saw a person who looked burnt out and broken, which was not surprising given the attacks on her were not just political, they were personal.

- Aaron Smale

She has largely stayed out of the public eye since then, but that has shifted with the hoopla around her recently released autobiography and another political and personal attack, this one masquerading as an independent inquiry into the Covid response.

Ardern’s tenure was born out of a brilliant election campaign that had nothing to lose, compared with poor old Bill English trying to carry the dead weight of the incumbents after John Key gapped it when the numbers turned. Labour had burnt through a series of dull leaders and she was their last bright hope.

But that was part of Ardern’s problem - she is a very good communicator but she came into government with very little to actually communicate. How could she when she got the hospital pass of several failed Labour leaders and a cabinet full of lightweights? She managed to dodge the first tackle of the election but then got monstered at the bottom of the ruck in her second term of government.

Two of the biggest crises of Ardern’s time as prime minister were things that no leader could have prepared for: a massacre and a global pandemic.

Ardern’s ability to communicate and her natural empathy enabled her to rise to the occasion during the Christchurch mosque massacre.