When Jacinda Ardern's popularity irked a 66-year-old Christchurch bricklayer, he spawned the #TurnArdern movement, urging people to turn over books, magazines and other items featuring the New Zealand prime minister's face on the cover. The publicity has boosted sales of the new Ardern biography, which has spent seven weeks on New Zealand’s bestseller list, and created the #ReturnArdern countermovement, with people filming themselves turning the items the right way round again
Continue reading...Category Archives: Jacinda Ardern
Housing, inequality, climate: what the Guardian’s New Zealand readers asked Jacinda Ardern
As an election year approaches, several key themes emerged from questions you sent in for the prime minister
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As New Zealanders count down to the end of tumultuous year and look ahead to the election in 2020, the Guardian asked readers which questions they would like to pose to Jacinda Ardern.
We will publish the prime minister’s answers on Monday, but here we lay out the topics that people in New Zealand felt were the most pressing.
Continue reading...‘The scale is devastating’: families and Ardern react after New Zealand volcano erupts – video
The families of those missing after the White Island eruption in New Zealand say they are 'standing together' as they wait for information about their loved ones. Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's prime minister, said the scale of the disaster was 'devastating' and that reconnaissance flights had found no sign of life on the island. Police have launched an inquiry into the eruption after at least six people died and many more were injured
- White Island volcano: police open inquiry as sixth person dies
- 'I don't have any hope': Whakatāne mourns after White Island eruption
- New Zealand volcano: helicopter pilot says he was victims' last hope
New Zealand volcano: fatal eruption on White Island – video report
New Zealand’s Whakaari/White Island volcano erupted on Monday at 2.11pm as 50 people were visiting the country's most active volcano. At least five people were killed and authorities confirmed some people were still waiting to be rescued hours after the eruption on the island, as experts explained it was unsafe for emergency services to return
- New Zealand volcano: five confirmed dead after eruption on White Island – live
- White Island volcano eruption: dozens missing after fatal incident in New Zealand
Jacinda Ardern unveils borrowing plan as PM puts Labour on election footing
Leader pitches schools overhaul in party conference message aimed at nation’s voters as much as Labour members
- We are expanding our coverage of New Zealand. Please help us by supporting our independent journalism
New Zealand Labour has used its party conference to announce it would borrow money for “significant” infrastructure spending – a move long urged by businesses and economists – as it made its pitch to New Zealanders ahead of a 2020 election.
The party put its most popular asset, prime minister Jacinda Ardern, front and centre at the weekend gathering, which also saw the election of a new, female president, as it moved to address claims it has mishandled internal sexual assault complaints.
Continue reading...Ardern’s prisoner voting compromise exposes the cynicism of NZ politics
PM’s decision to take the middle way between Labour’s progressive base and conservative opposition shows a lack of leadership
New Zealand takes great pride in having been the first country in the world to give women the vote. But not all New Zealand women can vote, as most prisoners are still denied that right.
In 2010, the National party passed a blanket ban on prisoner voting. Until then, prisoners serving sentences of less than three years were allowed to vote. This government has just announced it will give the vote back to those with sentences of three years or less – probably about 1,900 prisoners.
Continue reading...Bohemian Rhapsody and a BBQ: Stephen Colbert visits Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand
Prime minister collects chat show host from the airport in first episode of ‘The Newest Zealander’
The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert engaged in potentially copyright-infringing carpool karaoke with prime minister Jacinda Ardern and pranked Lorde at a barbecue – aka a “New Zealand state dinner” – as he made good on a promise to get as far away as possible from news about Donald Trump.
The chat show host got straight to it in his sit-down interview with the New Zealand prime minister for Tuesday night’s opening episode, called the “Newest Zealander”, pleading to become a citizen and offering to marry Ardern and partner Clarke Gayford.
Continue reading...A weeping sore – Jacinda Ardern must clean up New Zealand’s political donations mess
New revelations about party funding are a stain on the country’s reputation for transparency
Complacency can be a nation’s greatest foe.
New Zealanders, buoyed by their country’s high ranking in global transparency measures, see little to learn from other states when it comes to cleaning up politics.
Continue reading...After Christchurch, kindness is the only way to live each day
The mosque attacks rocked New Zealand but good deeds and generosity will help keep us together
The day of 15 March 2019 will stay with me forever. I was working in my bedroom, listening to radio and drawing. The on-air chat and music was interrupted as news of a shooting at a mosque in Christchurch began to filter through. How could this possibly be happening in our quiet little island tucked away at the bottom of the world?
I brushed it off as some sort of mistake, until news of a shooting at a second mosque emerged minutes later. While witnesses and locals reported the horror that had just unfolded, I scrolled online looking for some sort of explanation, a way to make sense of it – and found everyone was lost for words as I was.
Continue reading...‘On the right side of history’: Jacinda Ardern hails New Zealand zero-carbon law – video
The New Zealand prime minister's zero-carbon bill has passed in parliament with historic cross-party support. It commits the country to new climate change laws and to reduce its carbon emissions to zero by 2050 in line with the Paris climate agreement. The bill passed by 119 votes to one with the centre-right opposition National party's support, despite none of its proposed amendments being accepted
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern has a major problem with minor parties, and it could seal her fate | Bryce Edwards
With micro-parties poised to steal votes from the PM’s coalition partners, it could sink them all in 2020 election
With a year until the next election, Jacinda Ardern may be extraordinarily personally popular, and Labour polling well, but neither fact will determine her fate.
In the end, all eyes will be on a handful of low-polling minor parties that could wield influence well beyond their size and ultimately determine the outcome.
Continue reading...Ardern tells New Zealand farmers to cut carbon emissions or face penalties
Farmers given until 2022 to make changes or pay higher taxes as party of net-zero emissions by 2050 policy
New Zealand farmers have five years to reduce their carbon emissions before the government introduces financial penalties, prime minister Jacinda Ardern has announced.
Ardern’s Labour coalition government has committed to making New Zealand carbon net-zero by 2050, with the PM likening the climate change battle to the previous generations’ struggle against the rise of nuclear power.
Continue reading...Trump showed interest in New Zealand gun buyback program, Ardern says
Prime minister says she and Trump discussed her country’s reforms on sidelines of UN general assembly
Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand prime minister, has said Donald Trump expressed “interest” in her country’s gun buyback program, as the US president faces calls for dramatic changes to the nation’s firearms laws.
After the two leaders met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Ardern told reporters that she “sensed an interest” from the US president in the sweeping gun reforms her government passed after the Christchurch mosque shootings in March.
Continue reading...Labour’s #MeToo moment eats away at Ardern’s most prized possession – trust | Alison Mau
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s credentials at home and abroad as a new kind of leader all hang on her next move
It’s just shy of a year ago that Jacinda Ardern stood in the UN general assembly and spoke in support of the #MeToo movement. There was spontaneous applause from the floor for that small part of a much longer speech – it felt like a significant moment.
The New Zealand leader’s trip to New York attracted the usual grumbles here at home – those who could not quite get their head around the very idea of a 38-year-old unmarried woman as prime minister carped about her decision to take her three-month-old daughter along – but the result was the blossoming of an international media love affair. Baby Neve’s appearance at the back of the UN chamber was just the icing on the cake.
Continue reading...Ardern under pressure as staffer accused of sexual assault quits
New Zealand prime minister facing questions as to when she first found out about claims
Pressure is growing on Jacinda Ardern to explain when she was made aware of serious sexual assault allegations in her party after the staffer at the centre of the furore resigned.
The individual remains unnamed but is known to have worked in a senior role in Parliament House and had regular interaction with senior Labour ministers.
Continue reading...Hundreds of protesters march on Jacinda Ardern’s office over Māori land dispute
Petition with more than 25,000 signatures delivered, calling on New Zealand PM to visit sacred Ihumātao site
Several hundred protesters have marched on Jacinda Ardern’s Auckland office, demanding she visit Ihumātao, the site of a major indigenous land dispute that has broadened into wider anger at government inaction in tackling Māori disadvantage.
The protesters delivered a petition, signed by more than 26,000 people, to the prime minister’s office urging her to travel to the site that has been occupied for the past month as part of a housing dispute.
Continue reading...Alan Jones says advertisers who leave his program will be replaced by others
Total of 19 big advertisers have dropped his breakfast program after comments he made about Jacinda Ardern
Broadcaster Alan Jones says advertisers who chose to abandon his program because of his slurs against women will be replaced by others.
“I’ve got no comment about the advertisers, they can make their own judgement if they go,” a defiant Jones told Nine News. “There will be others that take their place.”
Continue reading...Australia ‘has to answer to the Pacific’ over climate change, Jacinda Ardern says – video
Jacinda Ardern has declared that ‘Australia has to answer to the Pacific’ on climate change, saying that New Zealand is doing what it can to limit global emissions and expects other nations to do the same. Pacific leaders have this week been urging Australia to commit to urgent action to reduce emissions
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern accused by Māori of ‘lacking leadership’ in land dispute
Row over plans to build 500 homes on sacred land in Auckland escalates with seven protesters arrested
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, is being accused of a “lack of leadership” over an escalating land dispute between Māori and a construction company which plans to build 500 homes on sacred land in south Auckland.
Opposition to the project boiled over this week over when a group that had been illegally occupying the land was served an eviction notice.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern prime minister of Australasia? If only it was that simple | Nicholas Reece
New Zealand has a long history of outstanding policy innovation and political leadership. Australia could learn a lot from it
The good and the great of Melbourne packed in to the town hall on Thursday evening to hear the New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, speak on the topic of why good government matters.
Since the tragic Christchurch mosque massacre, Ardern has come to be seen not just as one of the world’s youngest leaders of a nation, but also as one of the world’s great leaders.
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