By Aryan Goyal
The first time I heard about Jacinda Ardern was right after the tragic March 2019 shootings at mosques in Christchurch. Firstly, her unorthodox response focused on empathising with the directly affected Muslim community. Moreover, her efforts to denounce racism embedded in society in an effort to bring the nation closer was what first brought her under the international eye. Surprisingly, she continued to develop her political stance through substantive policy change in the form of banning all military-style semi-automatic guns and assault rifles. Since then, she has been riding high, guiding New Zealand through the White Island volcano eruption and recently, Covid-19.
But, who was Jacinda Ardern before? How did she become the Labour party’s prime ministerial candidate? What are her party’s election promises? And has she delivered on them?
This article attempts to answer not only these but even more compelling questions in order to understand Jacinda Ardern and her politics. The general elections for NZ are set to happen on 19th September this year so it is a particularly good time to take a deep dive into this topic.
Jacinda Ardern grew up in a working-class, Mormon family. Later on, Ardern described herself as an agnostic, citing the church’s stand on LGBTQ+ issues. She completed her Bachelors in communication studies in politics and public relations in 2001. In addition to this, Ardern worked as a policy advisor under Tony Blair in the UK, before coming back to fight elections for the Labour party. Surprisingly, Ardern lost the electoral vote in her first three elections (2008, 2011, and 2014) but made the parliament as a list MP. She finally won a by-election in 2017 for which she stood unopposed. Following this, Ardern became the deputy leader of the Labour party.
However, the polls showed voters losing confidence in the Labour party led by Andrew Little, which prompted him to resign. This meant that just seven weeks before the 2017 general elections, Jacinda Ardern took the helm of the Labour party. She managed to reverse this sentiment by focusing on issues she was passionate about such as child poverty, climate change, and the public services sector (education and healthcare). Within weeks, Labour rose in the polls from 24% to 43% which was an unprecedented increase termed as “Jacindamania”. This ultimately led to the Labour party winning 46 seats, a substantial improvement from the 32 it got in 2014. Out of a possible 120 seats in New Zealand’s House of Representatives, the centre-right National party won a plurality with 57 seats. In addition to this, the Green party won 8 seats, while the NZ First party won 9 seats.
Even though the National Party was the single largest party in terms of seats won. A minority coalition government was formed with Labour, Green, and NZ First. Ardern has been able to manage a surprising coalition with NZ First whose leader Winston Peters holds nationalist, anti-immigrant views. Recently, Peters criticised the lockdown rules in New Zealand urging Ardern to lift the lockdown.
Ardern’s style of governance is refreshing as it focuses on clear communication, transparency, and empathy, which is different from previous governments. In an interview for TIME Magazine, Ardern said “I think this whole model of leadership that says you’ve got to be tough, and tough means you can’t be kind, is just wrong”
However, this image took a hit as victims of sexual assault within the Labour party spoke out regarding the bullying and sexual harassment within the party. Although, it is unclear whether Ardern knew about the allegations. According to Alison Mau, the editor of #MeTooNZ, the group of victims doesn’t blame Ardern, and actually pin their hopes on Ardern to bring the change they are demanding.
With regards to election promises, the Labour party announced the Families package targeted towards middle and lower-income households in an attempt to reduce child poverty and help families in NZ. This included increased paid parental leave, providing tax credits, and financial support for heating in houses and carers.
On the climate change front, the Labour party is on track to deliver their promise of planting 1 billion trees over 10 years and they have banned single-use plastics. In addition to this, they introduced a Zero carbon bill to bring greenhouse gas emissions (except biogenic methane) to 0 by 2050. With biogenic methane, the target is to reduce emissions by 10% by 2030 and 24-47% by 2050. Experts argue by setting separate targets for biogenic methane, it is easier for New Zealand to achieve the targets, thereby making this bill less substantive.
The Labour party made some bold promises to the Public Services sector. Unfortunately, change is yet to be seen. With education, primary and secondary school teachers went on the largest strike in NZ history in 2019 after dissatisfying negotiations with the government over a year on the issue of wage increases and excessive workload. A similar frustration was felt by the healthcare sector workers as 30,000 nurses went on strike in 2018 claiming they were overworked and underpaid. Moreover, the transport sector also had strikes by airport workers and bus drivers.
This vexation follows a history of neglect which spans decades. The previous National government (2009-17) was responsible for anti-union legislation, underfunding the public sector, and leading to a situation where wage growth was not able to match the soaring housing prices. To this, the Labour party promised transformational change in 2017. However, they severely hampered their ability to deliver this change through a set of Budget responsibility rules which they agreed to, stating they would bring down debt, and deliver budget surpluses. According to Branko Marcetic, this was done to attract centrist voters but has meant that it has become impossible to deliver this transformational change without discarding these rules that have become an albatross around their neck.
The Labour party has largely failed to improve the situation regarding housing. In 2017, the Economist reported that NZ had the most unaffordable housing prices in the world. The flagship scheme to address this was Kiwibuild, through which the government promised to build 100,000 houses in 10 years and promote affordable housing in other ways. However, the policy has been a failure with the minister of Housing calling it “overly ambitious” later on with only 258 homes being built over 18 months.
This is not to say that Labour has not brought any positives to these sectors. In their 2019 budget, they increased the funding for education, incentivising teaching as a profession. Furthermore, they also started a program to provide free lunches to low-decile schools. Labour also increased the funding of the district health boards (DHBs). In 2018, legislation was passed to ban most foreigners from buying homes in New Zealand. Nevertheless, these steps might be good but aren’t close to the revolutionary change Ardern promised.
New Zealand is set to go to the polls on September 19, and it will be interesting to see how the country votes. The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken things up and the usually contested issues of education, economy, healthcare will all be looked at in the context of the pandemic.
In terms of elections, New Zealand is unique as it has a mixed-member proportional representation system of voting, a unicameral parliament while being a constitutional monarchy. A mix of these 3 factors is very rare and has helped preserve democracy in New Zealand. The Labour Party remains more popular than its challenger, the National Party. For the post of prime minister Ardern’s popularity increased after her exemplary handling of the Covid-19 epidemic and she remains much more popular than her adversary, Todd Muller according to the 1News Colmar Brunton poll from June 2020. Muller is the National party’s new leader, which has boosted the party’s popularity. The way things stand, Labour looks set for re-election and there is the possibility that they might achieve a majority in Parliament on their own. With NZ First out of the picture, it would surely make it simpler for Labour and Ardern to achieve their goals.
Edited by Gunvir Paintal
Artwork by Mira Kurtovic