Category Archives: Jacinda Ardern

Albanese vows to reconsider Australia’s deportations rules in olive branch to New Zealand

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Jacinda Ardern welcomes ‘reset’ in trans-Tasman relationship after years of tension over visa cancellations on character grounds

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has vowed to consider changing how the government handles visa cancellations in an olive branch to ease longstanding tensions with New Zealand.

The pledge to look at tweaking the scheme prompted the visiting New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, to declare the talks in Sydney on Friday allowed for “a reset” in the trans-Tasman relationship.

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Jacinda Ardern to visit Anthony Albanese to discuss ‘difficult’ deportation issue

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New Zealand PM arriving in Sydney on Thursday will be first foreign leader hosted by new Labor government

Jacinda Ardern will visit Australia later this week to meet the new prime minister, Anthony Albanese, when she plans to again raise the issue of “501” deportations of New Zealanders.

The New Zealand PM will visit Sydney on Thursday – the first foreign leader hosted by the new Labor government.

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Biden praises Ardern for ‘galvanising action’ on gun control and climate change

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US president welcomes New Zealand’s PM to Oval Office and speaks of devastation caused by mass shootings

New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern has met US president Joe Biden to discuss shared concerns about China’s growing influence in the Pacific, as well as extremism and dealing with the aftermath of mass shootings.

The two leaders spoke for more than an hour, with Biden saying Ardern’s leadership on issues like climate change, violence and extremism was of international importance.

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New Zealand and allies allowed ‘vacuum’ to develop in Pacific, former foreign minister says

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Comments by Winston Peters come as China hopes 10 Pacific countries will sign wide-ranging security deal

New Zealand and its allies have failed to listen to “alarm bells” about China’s growing influence, and allowed a “vacuum” to develop in the Pacific, New Zealand’s former foreign minister Winston Peters has said.

His comments come amid news that China hopes 10 Pacific countries will sign a wide-ranging draft deal covering security, trade and investment. The agreement would dramatically increase China’s influence in the region.

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Jacinda Ardern wows Harvard with New Zealand’s lesson on gun control and democracy

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In commencement address New Zealand PM warns against the ‘scourge of online disinformation’, and wins standing ovation for crackdown on weapons

Jacinda Ardern has spoken out against the online “scourge of disinformation” in an address at Harvard University, in which she also won standing ovations for her government’s gun control laws, diversity and decriminalisation of abortion.

The New Zealand prime minister was honoured by the American university , making the annual commencement address to more than a thousand students on Thursday from the same stage as figures such as Winston Churchill, Angela Merkel, Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey.

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Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand ‘ready to respond’ to Pacific’s security needs as China seeks deal in region

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Prime minister says ‘the Pacific is our home’ as Beijing plans a regional security pact with almost a dozen island nations

Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand is “ready to respond” to security needs in the Pacific, after it emerged China is planning a Pacific-wide security deal with almost a dozen island nations.

The prime minister, who is touring the US, said she believed the Pacific could meet its security needs internally, implying it should do so without intervention from China or elsewhere. “On anything related to security arrangements, we are very strongly of the view that we have within the Pacific the means and ability to respond to any security challenges that exist and New Zealand is willing to do that,” Ardern said.

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New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern responds to Texas school shooting

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Prime minister says after 2019 Christchurch massacre, country made a ‘pragmatic’ decision to get guns off streets: ‘We saw something that wasn’t right and we acted’

New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern says her country’s swift change to gun laws after the 2019 mass shooting in Christchurch was a “pragmatic” response, where “we saw something that wasn’t right and we acted on it”.

The prime minister was speaking as her visit to the United States coincided with the mass killing of 19 children at a school in Uvalde, Texas.

Ardern appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which was filmed shortly after the Uvalde shooting. “When I watch from afar and see events such as this today, it’s not as a politician. I see them just as a mother,” an emotional Ardern said. “I’m so sorry for what has happened here.”

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Poorest New Zealanders lose out to ‘squeezed middle’ in budget, inequality experts say

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Government says child poverty is easing in all areas but those on the ground say the dial has barely shifted in the past five years

The budget neglects poor New Zealanders in favour of the “squeezed middle”, inequality experts have said, despite promises by Jacinda Ardern’s government to combat child poverty.

Budget 2022 offered up a swathe of short-term sweeteners to soften the rising costs of living, including a $350 payment for people earning less than $70,000 but not on other benefits.

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Jacinda Ardern loses sense of taste after Covid, can’t enjoy cheese roll

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New Zealand PM remains in isolation but tried to uphold budget breakfast tradition with finance minister via Instagram

New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern says she has lost her sense of taste after testing positive for Covid-19 on Saturday.

Thursday was budget day in New Zealand, when traditionally the prime minister has an early morning breakfast with finance minister Grant Robertson. Typically, the two share cheese rolls – a South Island New Zealand delicacy involving cheddar cheese and powdered soup rolled inside a piece of toasted white bread. This year, the breakfast took place via Instagram live stream – and the prime minister said the cheese rolls were missing their usual flavour notes.

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Jacinda Ardern greeted by giant sad dancing kiwifruit during visit to Japan

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Two large mascots, dancing to sorrowful music, helped welcome the New Zealand prime minister on her first trip overseas since the pandemic began

New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern has been met in Japan on her first trip outside the country in two years by a duo of enormous, mournfully dancing kiwifruit.

The two large mascots welcomed the prime minister with a gentle swaying routine, set to a piece of slow, somewhat sorrowful chamber music. They had a sombre audience of suited men.

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Ardern’s Labour party slips to second in New Zealand polling for first time since pandemic began

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Jacinda Ardern remains preferred prime minister but her party records worst polling since 2017 amid Covid surge and rising living costs

For the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Jacinda Ardern-led Labour party has slipped from being New Zealand’s most popular and been overtaken by the right.

A new TVNZ/Kantar Public poll found the centre-right National party had surged by seven points to 39%, compared with Labour’s 37% – making it Labour’s lowest result in the poll since it was elected in 2017.

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Fires and clashes break out at Covid protest outside New Zealand parliament – video

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Fires burned during violent clashes between protesters and police at an anti-vaccine mandate demonstration in the grounds of New Zealand’s parliament, in extraordinary and chaotic scenes rarely seen in the country    

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New Zealand authorities deploy Barry Manilow against Covid protesters

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Sound system on parliament grounds plays vaccine messages, Macarena and the crooner’s 1970s hits

New Zealand authorities have deployed Barry Manilow against protesters at its parliament, playing his greatest hits at hundreds camped out over coronavirus restrictions.

The protest began when a convoy of trucks and cars drove to parliament from across the country, inspired by protests in Canada. At first there were more than 1,000 protesters but that number dwindled as the week wore on before growing again on Saturday.

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Jacinda Ardern delivers Waitangi Day address – video

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In a pre-recorded address, the New Zealand prime minister says while people cannot come together on the Treaty grounds this year due to Covid restrictions, 'the day remains of great importance to us as a nation'. Ardern acknowledges the government still has a way to go in turning around poverty, housing inequality and poor health outcomes for Māori. 'If we are to make progress as a nation, we have to be willing to question practices that have resulted over and over in the same or even worse outcomes', she says 

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New Zealand to end quarantine and reopen borders – video

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New Zealand's government has said it will end its quarantine requirements and reopen its borders, a change sought by thousands of citizens abroad who have endured long waits to return home.

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said she knows many people associate the border controls with heartache but they have undeniably saved lives. 

'There is no question that for New Zealand, it has been one of the hardest parts of the pandemic," she said. "But the reason that it is right up there as one of the toughest things we have experienced is, in part, because large-scale loss of life is not.'

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Jacinda Ardern’s poll rating at lowest since becoming New Zealand’s PM

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The Labour leader’s approval has dropped to 35% as the country wrestles with the Omicron Covid variant and rising inflation

Support for Jacinda Ardern has dropped to its lowest level since she became New Zealand’s prime minister in 2017, as the country reckons with higher living costs and a Covid-19 outbreak.

While Ardern remains New Zealand’s preferred prime minister by a significant margin, her support had dropped four points in the latest 1 News Kantor poll, to 35%. The result is her lowest since just before the 2017 election, when Ardern began her tenure. Her counterparts on the right are still tailing by a significant margin, but new National leader Christopher Luxon had made substantial gains, up 13 points to 17%.

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‘Such is life’: Jacinda Ardern cancels wedding amid Omicron wave – video

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The Omicron outbreak in New Zealand has forced Jacinda Ardern and partner Clarke Gayford to cancel their wedding, which was due to take place in the coming weeks at Gisborne on the North Island’s eastern coast. The prime minister said on Sunday the country would be placed on the highest level of restrictions to try to slow the spread of the variant

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Red alert: PM cancels wedding as New Zealand prepares for thousands of Omicron cases a day

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Prime minister Jacinda Ardern says Omicron is now circulating in the community but ‘we’ll do everything that we can to slow the spread’

Omicron has breached New Zealand’s borders and started spreading in the community, Jacinda Ardern has said, meaning the entire country will be placed on the highest level of restrictions.

The outbreak has also forced the prime minister to cancel her wedding to Clarke Gayford, which was due to take place in the coming weeks at Gisborne on the North Island’s eastern coast.

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As Omicron rages around the world, Ardern deploys an old tactic – delay

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Jacinda Ardern says Omicron is ‘knocking at our door’ as the prime minister faces criticism over gaps in preparations for a Covid wave

In her first press conference of the year, held outside in the central North Island sun, prime minister Jacinda Ardern was almost drowned out by a wave of cicada calls.

The clamour is synonymous with New Zealand summertime, a reminder that the country had managed to snatch a long, hot, largely unrestricted holiday season from the mouth of a late-2021 Delta outbreak.

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Pacific tsunami damage unclear as volcano ash blankets Tonga

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Conditions hinder communications and surveillance of towns believed to have been inundated by waves

A thick blanket of ash from a huge undersea volcanic eruption has covered the Pacific Island nation of Tonga, contaminating water supplies, cutting off communications and preventing surveillance flights assessing the extent of damage from tsunami waves that are believed to have inundated entire towns.

Videos shared on social media after Saturday night’s eruption showed people running for higher ground as the metre-high floods hit coastal areas and made their way inland while the sky darkened with ash. A sonic boom could be heard as far away as Alaska.

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