Over the weekend, the people of New Zealand emphatically rejected the Labour party, with the country’s general election delivering a forceful blow to the left.
The result has ushered in a new right-leaning era of government for the country, with the centre-right conservative National Party sweeping to victory.
“All over this country you have reached for hope and you have voted for change,” New Zealand’s new Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, leader of the National Party, told a crowd at his election night gathering in Auckland.
New Zealand’s shift to the right comes a mere three years on from Jacinda Ardern’s landslide victory, a triumph at the polls which secured back-to-back coverage in Ireland. Yet, you may have noticed by now there has been substantially less talk here about the result of Sunday’s election, and the way in which New Zealand fell out of love with Ardern.
Over the course of her term as Prime Minister, the Irish media have been among the most enthusiastic and steadfast of Ardern’s cheerleaders. The love affair with Ardern endured despite domestic criticism of her policies, from her extremism on abortion to draconian Covid lockdowns and mandates imposed under her reign.
The Irish Examiner’s view, in January for example, when she announced her resignation as Prime Minister, was that Ardern was “going as she governed, with wisdom and honesty.” Another op-ed from that newspaper credited Ardern with “redefining leadership in an age of hate.”
Prior to that, The Irish Times said that as a leader, Ardern proved the “power of competence and compassion.” That publication also quipped that Ardern should “be an example to leaders everywhere” and a “global symbol for women in leadership.”
Rather than any meaningful assessment of Ardern’s iron fist in her Covid policy, for instance, our media chose to focus on the “stereotyping and sexist questioning” of Ardern by the media. There was very much a sense that Ardern deserved to be viewed with nothing but respect, with Ardern mania, championed by our media class, elevating her to Sainthood in some quarters.
There has been virtually no criticism to be found from our media of Ardern and her party’s draconian Covid policy that banned New Zealanders abroad from returning to the country, subjected people to house arrest, and punished those who were unvaccinated. I know of one Irish couple who happily returned home from building a life and a family in New Zealand, reluctant but relieved to Ireland due to the exile they were subjected to because they didn’t take a Covid shot.
While we thought Ireland was bad, New Zealand at times bordered on the Orwellian. It was the case that you had rights if you were vaccinated, but not if you weren’t.
Ardern’s extremism on abortion, which saw the procedure decriminalised completely under her leadership in 2020 – allowing abortion on demand up to 20 weeks of pregnancy, close to when babies can start to survive outside of the womb – has also attracted zero scrutiny from Irish journalists.
Then there was Labour’s climate change agenda. There was little coverage here when New Zealand’s farmers and rural voters turned away from Ardern’s Labour party in their droves, with her climate policies sowing extreme discord, many feeling threatened and at risk of farm closure if they could not meet near impossible emission targets.
Labour’s plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions were described as draconian, and many indeed predicted that farmers would unite to take the party apart at the polls over fears the plans would signal an end to their livelihoods.
The country saw huge farmers’ protests unfold in the run-up to the general election, with farmers driving their tractors on motorways and towns, vowing to oust Labour from government. “We want them out,” some determined farmers who spoke to The Telegraph said last week as Labour braced for the worst.
To that end, the result of the election makes it apparent that Green policies angered many, making farming more difficult and more costly, and lowering morale in an industry key to New Zealand’s export-led economy. One sign, seen at a protest last October in Auckland, summarised the frustration felt by disenchanted farmers and read, “We feed the World!”
Another point of contention was the way in which Ardern tried to legally limit what New Zealanders might say, with her government bringing forward a Bill in parliament to extend the scope of Hate Speech laws. Despite all of the issues, in her resignation speech, the self-congratulation was obvious, with Ardern stating: “I hope I leave New Zealanders with a belief that you can be kind but strong, empathetic but decisive, optimistic but focused.”
There was definitely a sense that Ardern did wholeheartedly and sincerely believe herself to be guided by a superior moral vision. That she was the kind one, and that others who disagreed with her were then, by default, the ones who were being unkind.
Those who objected to draining and endless lockdowns, who were shut out from society for being unvaccinated, or who didn’t agree with the country’s radical approach to Covid, or that, as Ardern stunningly asserted in a press conference in March 2020, that she and her officials were “the single source of truth.”
Irish coverage of Ardern’s tenure as prime minister, for the most part, glossed over how her policies actually impacted people, and failed to tell the story of how New Zealanders were really feeling. Glowing coverage, the kind seen in Ireland, by journalists far away from the realities of life for New Zealanders, had little understanding of life in the country. But Ardern’s global rise to stardom was facilitated by that kind of international coverage, which came about, no doubt, simply because she was the perfect remedy to the likes of Britain’s Boris Johnson, who was a constant target of scrutiny in our media.
Ardern, on the other hand, fitted the bill as a modern, progressive, centre-left starlet who quickly ascended to superstar status with her big smile, and her ‘Be Kind’ message. A feminist icon.
Underneath the surface, though, was a level of authoritarianism that Ardern, blinded perhaps by her own vanity and virtue-signalling, could not acknowledge. Policies enacted during Covid under her Labour government were unjustifiable in any functioning democracy, and it is clear Labour have now paid the price for those tyrannical policies, with six years of a liberal government coming crashing to a halt.
What is interesting in all of this is the sheer lack of curiosity in the Irish press. Suddenly, Ireland has no interest in this weekend’s election results, or very little, because they do not suit the uber-progressive agenda many in our media want to promote.
Ardern, and the Labour government’s legacy is perhaps not so much one of kindness and compassion and brilliant political heroism, but rather, as this weekend proved, it is that Ardern paved the way for a centre-right, conservative government because the people had finally had enough.