Since her election in 2017, New Zealand has faced multiple crises, and her leadership has attracted headlines across the world. Here are some of the key aspects of her time in office.
The Christchurch mosque attacks
In the uncertain hours after the Christchurch mosque attacks of 15 March 2019, Ardern emphasised that the victims of the massacre were beloved, integral members of the New Zealand community. The attacker was not.
“Many of those who will have been directly affected by this shooting may be migrants to New Zealand, they may even be refugees here. They have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home.
“They are us. The person who has perpetuated this violence against us is not,” Ardern said. “They have no place in New Zealand. There is no place in New Zealand for such acts of extreme and unprecedented violence, which it is clear this act was.”
The violent shooting attack on two Christchurch mosques by a lone Australian terrorist, which killed 51 people, was the cataclysmic event of Ardern’s premiership, and her response to it its defining act.
Ardern wore a hijab as she sat with survivors and the families of victims, and emphasising her country’s solidarity with them.
“Speak the names of those who were lost rather than the man who took them,” she said. “He may seek notoriety but we will give him nothing, not even his name.”
Strong leadership: New Zealand Prime Minister @jacindaardern visits grieving Muslim families, wearing hijab as a sign of respect.
— Negar Mortazavi نگار مرتضوی (@NegarMortazavi) March 16, 2019
She tells them: You are us. pic.twitter.com/rhglbJyZ36
In the immediate aftermath, Ardern moved to tighten New Zealand’s gun laws, banning military-style semi-automatic weapons just six days after the attack. More than 62,000 firearms were ultimately removed from circulation through a gun buy-back scheme.
And she became an outspoken campaigner to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online, spearheading – alongside the French president, Emmanuel Macron – the Christchurch Call to Action.
Covid-19
All premierships since 2020 will be marked, in some way, against the scorecard of Covid-19. Ardern, helped by New Zealand’s island nation geography and relatively robust public health system, was widely praised for a “world-leading” response, but significantly thanked her “team of 5 million” New Zealanders for their support, and the sacrifices they had made.
New Zealand’s Covid-19 response – an initial strategy of elimination (which included border closures and lockdown) transitioning to a mitigation strategy – has kept infections and deaths low.
In the first 18 months of the pandemic, until vaccines became widely available, New Zealand had low Covid-19 mortality rates: life expectancy actually increased. To January 2023, the country has recorded fewer than 2,500 deaths in total from the pandemic.
Pockets of disaffection have remained tenacious – a small core of conspiracy-prone anti-government protesters occupied parliament’s lawns for weeks in 2022, some threatening violence – but Ardern’s response was widely seen as having saved lives.
Whakaari/White Island volcano
Further tragedy was visited upon New Zealand in December 2019, when Whakaari/White Island erupted, killing 21 people, including tourists from the UK, US, Australia, China and Malaysia.
Ardern met first responders in Whakatāne, praising the helicopter pilots who flew to the island in the immediate aftermath of the eruption to rescue those stranded. The pilots, Ardern said, made “an incredibly brave decision under extraordinary, dangerous circumstances in an attempt to get people out”.
She later told parliament: “I say to those who have lost and grieve – you are forever linked to our nation and we will hold you close”.
Fame, and a family
In the early months of her premiership, there was a word for it: “Jacindamania”. Ardern was celebrated around the world, alongside Macron and Canada’s Justin Trudeau, as a progressive riposte to the rise of Donald Trump in the US.
Ardern was featured on the cover of British Vogue, replete with glamorous photoshoot inside. She appeared repeatedly on the American TV host Stephen Colbert’s Late Show, and made Time magazine’s list of 100 of the world’s “most influential people”.
She became only the second world leader to give birth while in office (Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto was first, in 1990). She took her infant daughter, Neve, to the UN general assembly in New York. All attracted attention, bordering on adulation.
But fame was occasionally a double-edged sword. Ardern faced repeated intrusive questioning about her personal life – her pregnancy, her partner, her hair. And when she met the Finnish prime minister, Sanna Marin, she was interrogated as to whether they’d only met because they were both young female prime ministers.
“I wonder whether or not anyone ever asked Barack Obama and John Key if they met because they were of similar age,” she mused in response.
In 2022, Ardern earned a standing ovation – and again made global headlines – for a commencement speech to students at Harvard University, urging a defence of “fragile” democracy against a rising tide of authoritarianism and intolerance.
“This imperfect but precious way that we organise ourselves, that has been created to give equal voice to the weak and to the strong, that is designed to help drive consensus. It is fragile.”
Domestic political malaise
Ardern’s premiership has also been marked by domestic policy disappointments as her party stumbled over reforms to housing, waterways and agriculture.
Economic headwinds have buffeted New Zealand’s economy. Inflation hit 7.2% in 2022 (with grocery costs rising more than 10%), forcing New Zealand’s reserve bank to plan a “shallow recession” for the country. Interest rates were lifted, putting further pressure on household budgets, and petrol prices spiked.
KiwiBuild, the Ardern government’s much-touted intervention into the housing market, was ambitious – 100,000 homes by 2028 – but ultimately a failure.
Growing concern about crime further fuelled discontent, and New Zealanders grew more pessimistic during the second half of Ardern’s tenure. In early 2021, a poll showed 70% of New Zealanders “think the country is going in the right direction”. By the end of 2022, that figure was 30%.
