JACINDA ARDERN – A TRUE PICTURE BASED ON A TRUE STORY

My first association with Jacinda Ardern was extremely positive. A

family member was having issues with the government social
security agency that was causing stress for that person. I contacted
Jacinda for help and at the time she was an opposition MP only.
She was not only supportive but extremely helpful and sent me
information that I relayed to the government department concerned
and they were then a lot more understanding in dealing with the
issue.
Jacinda mentioned that she would offer any further support that was
needed and I felt that as an MP her approachability and
understanding was first-rate.
There were some further email exchanges and as was wont of my
previous interest in politics related to my study I would relay the
feedback from surveys I conducted to her for her consideration.
At that time, Little was the opposition leader of the party Jacinda
belonged to and I conducted many surveys out of interest. The public
were absolutely against Little and so I kept promoting the idea that
Jacinda should tell her party to focus on the team rather than on
Little.
When it became clear to me that Little was despised by so many, I
pushed the idea to Jacinda that she should become the opposition
leader even though her popularity was not very high at the time. I
felt that she would be popular with young voters and women. She
was very diplomatic in her response and suggested that rather than
focussing on the leader, her party should focus on the team. A
reiteration of my earlier emailed suggestion which I found quite
amusing.
I am convinced that many other people were promoting the idea
with Jacinda to stand for PM and in the end she relented and went
ahead with the idea.
The outcome of the election was that Jacinda won 37% of the vote
whereas National won 44% of the vote so the majority of New
Zealanders wanted the National Party to govern. Given the nature of
New Zealand’s MMP system, Jacinda was able to stitch together a
minority government. On election night she claimed that New
Zealand had voted for change which was the first time I saw a
concerning transformation in her public speech which was a shift to
propaganda rather than fact. This was a saddening change of political
expediency. However, it did not change her genuine commitment to
bringing about social justice.
When I worked in Auckland CBD, I noticed innumerable homeless
people. I would arrive at a central city office block and on the landing
was a row of homeless men sleeping on the porch of the building
which was slightly sheltered from the elements. They were lined up
with bare feet and exposed buttocks. To me this was a totally
degrading sight and I wrote to Jacinda expressing my total horror at
this sight. I mentioned to her how I dealt with innumerable
international visitors and they had a very poor impression of the city.
It reflected terribly on our country and I mentioned to Jacinda that
we treated motor vehicles with greater deference than these
homeless people.
True to her attitude and convictions, I was informed by one of her
staff members that an additional 50 million dollars would be invested
in central city agencies to help these individuals. Again, this
demonstrated her concern for others. I noticed a considerable
reduction in street people over the next few weeks. This was good
because we were really at the mercy of droves of vagabonds who
were literally taking over the city and no one intervened.
Later on in her political program, she invested billions of dollars into
social welfare programs. I wrote to her again pointing out how
successive US presidents had declared war on poverty, Bob Hawke
the Australian president also declared that there would be child in
poverty after his re-election, African welfare for 60 years and the
Chilean government in the 1990s with highly targeted programs and
billions of dollars – all failed to make any change in reducing poverty.
Throwing billions of dollars at poverty historically proved it did not
help so I asked her why she had done this. It might help with highly
selective programs but not systemic poverty.
This is probably one issue that Jacinda failed in heeding the past
thinking that the cheque book could solve every issue. In fact, it
often exacerbates poverty rather than dealing with it.
When COVID struck, every government was caught off-guard
including Jacinda. She had to sack her health minister who
demonstrated his inability to cope. Initial responses to the pandemic
were a total failure and allowed the virus to take hold of the country.
However, where Jacinda succeeded was in heeding the advice of the
health experts in locking down the country. Many Kiwis were
opposed to the lockdown and at my work place we were in the
minority hoping for a lockdown and were so grateful when it was
announced. Jacinda was not unique in her response, other countries
did the same, especially countries that had dealt with the SARS
outbreaks. However, the insane decision to create quarantine
facilities in the centre of New Zealand’s most populous centre would
prove a disastrous choice.
In the end, many of her initiatives failed such as housing shortages
and her government simply introduced further taxation measures to
take money from citizens only to spend it on inefficient government
programs. But the humane nature of her government addressed a
serious imbalance in New Zealand society of a decade of neglect by
the National government which gutted the services to less fortunate
people in the country. If Jacinda had implemented her policies with
greater efficiency, perhaps her legacy would have been more
permanent and lasting. A person is judged not by their good
intentions, but rather by the results they produce. Having travelled
through New Zealand to many schools, I had noticed that serious
systemic poverty and lack of educational outcomes continues in the
country.
Jacinda joins a long list of well-meaning politicians who tried to make
a difference and did make a difference, but not to the degree that
would bring serious and lasting change to society. She certainly made
politicians as a group of professionals more acceptable but in the
end, many were disappointed in her tenure never realising the
insurmountable barriers that a government is constrained by in
pushing reform through to a meaningful conclusion.