Country records 21 new cases, its worst single day for transmission since April last year
Jacinda Ardern has warned New Zealanders the worst of the Delta outbreak of Covid-19 is yet to come after another jump in cases.
New Zealand recorded 21 fresh community cases on Saturday, the country’s worst single day for transmission since April last year.
Continue reading...Total case numbers grow to 31, including three in Wellington, as Jacinda Ardern urges public to stay vigilant
The whole of New Zealand will remain in lockdown until midnight Tuesday, prime minister Jacinda Ardern has announced, as the country’s coronavirus outbreak grew to 31 people and spread to Wellington.
The first case in the outbreak emerged in Auckland on Tuesday, prompting the government to put the entire country into a level-4 lockdown – the highest level of restrictions. Genome sequencing has linked the cluster to a returnee from Australia.
Continue reading...Asked what she would say to people who questioned the need for a level 4 lockdown, the prime minister responded with one word: ‘Australia’
To overseas eyes, going into national lockdown over a single case should have been a hard sell, even for an extraordinarily popular prime minister such as Jacinda Ardern.
But a disastrous outbreak of the Delta variant in Sydney has helped galvanise New Zealand’s “team of 5 million” – and across the country, the government’s tough strategy on Covid-19 has enjoyed widespread popular support.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern warns of more cases as Auckland cluster grows to seven, marking New Zealand’s first local transmissions of Delta variant
New Zealand’s coronavirus cluster has grown to seven, with genomic sequencing linking it to the Delta outbreak that began in Sydney, as the country woke up to day one of a snap lockdown stemming from just one case.
The country went into a snap level four lockdown – the highest level of restrictions – on Tuesday night, after detecting one case with no obvious links to the border. New Zealand has not had a level 4 lockdown in more than a year, and the case is the country’s first instance of Delta transmission in the community.
Continue reading...New Zealand will go into a national lockdown on Tuesday night after detecting one case of Covid-19, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced on Tuesday. ‘Delta has been called a gamechanger and it is,’ Ardern said, adding that her government had ‘planned for this eventuality’.
Under level 4, all New Zealanders are asked to shelter in place in a ‘bubble’ that only includes their immediate household or dependents. They can only leave the house to buy food or medical supplies, to access medical care or for socially distanced exercise
Continue reading...PM Jacinda Ardern warns this is ‘only chance’ to stop spread of suspected Delta variant
New Zealand will go into a national lockdown on Tuesday night, after detecting one case of Covid-19.
The entire country will be at alert level 4 – the highest level of lockdown – for at least three days from midnight, and the regions of Auckland and Coromandel for four to seven days.
Continue reading...New Zealand, which has stamped out coronavirus, plans to cautiously reopen its borders to international travellers early next year. The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said the government planned to follow the advice of experts and maintain the elimination strategy. She said borders would not reopen until after New Zealand's vaccine rollout was completed at the end of the year. About 29% of New Zealanders have received one dose of the vaccine and 17% are fully vaccinated
Continue reading...Health experts warn that reopening hinges on Covid vaccine programme reaching vulnerable communities
New Zealand’s much-awaited, albeit cautious, roadmap for reopening its borders has given businesses and families a taste of hope for the future, though health experts warn that it is dependent on improving the country’s vaccination strategy to reach vulnerable communities.
The prime minister Jacinda Ardern laid out the reopening plans at a forum in Wellington on Thursday, 17 months after borders closed in March 2020.
Continue reading...Polls this week suggest the glacial speed of the Covid vaccine rollout is starting to affect Labour’s support, even as PM remains personally popular
An unbeatable leader in times of crisis, New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s soaring popularity has teetered on the country’s slow road to vaccination.
This week, polling in New Zealand indicated some of the gloss may be fading from the Ardern government’s second term, which has enjoyed soaringly high popularity over the past year. The poll, conducted by Newshub/Reid Research, put Labour at 43%, down 9.7 percentage points. The results followed a similar trend line polling by TVNZ from May.
Continue reading...New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has formally apologised to Pacific Island people who were targeted for deportation in aggressive home raids in the mid-1970s. Ardern attended a ceremony at the Auckland town hall during which she made the apology on behalf of the nation for the racially charged 'dawn raids', which targeted Pasifika people for deportation. ‘The government expresses its sorrow, remorse, and regret that the dawn raids and random police checks occurred and that these actions were ever considered appropriate,’ Ardern said.
Continue reading...Report says 10% increase in child poverty hit Māori and Pasifika children hardest
An additional 18,000 New Zealand children were pushed into poverty in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new research, despite child welfare being one of prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s main concerns.
The Child Poverty Action Group – a group focused on eliminating poverty – put much of the increased poverty, inequity, homelessness and food insecurity down to government neglect as it created its policies during the pandemic.
Continue reading...New Zealand will suspend its quarantine-free travel bubble with Australia for two months, as the country grapples with a number of serious outbreaks of Covid-19. Travel with the states of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia had already been paused but will now expand to the entire country. At a press briefing on Friday, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said because of the Delta variant there was 'greater risk now … than when we opened the travel bubble'. While Ardern said she remained committed to the travel bubble, Ardern added 'Covid has changed and so must we'
New Zealand has dismissed suggestions it should follow in Britain’s footsteps to “live with” Covid-19. Prime minister Jacinda Ardern responded the question of whether the country would accept deaths from Covid, saying: "Different countries are taking different choices." The response comes as the UK leader Boris Johnson announced plans to scrap regulations including on face masks and social distancing by 19 July, saying that Britain must "learn to live with” the virus".
Continue reading...New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has told opposition leader Judith Collins changes to the country's hate speech laws won't prevent her from being called a Karen. The opposition leader referenced a tweet she was sent asking if calling "a middle-aged white woman a 'Karen’ now be a crime under Jacinda Ardern’s law?" Ardern responded, telling parliament: "That is absolutely incorrect and I apologise that means these laws will not protect the member from such a claim."
Continue reading...Comments by New Zealand PM came during a parliamentary debate on the country’s new hate speech laws
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has suggested her opposition party counterpart could be called a “Karen” during a fierce debate in parliament over laws governing hate speech.
Judith Collins, the leader of the opposition, has argued strongly against changes to the country’s hate speech laws, saying the new rules could mean “people feeling insulted being able to criminalise people who make them feel insulted.” After the 15 March mosque attacks by a white supremacist, the New Zealand government has proposed introducing much harsher penalties for those who incite or “normalise” discrimination or hatred.
Continue reading...The international media’s adulation of the New Zealand prime minister has complicated her challenges at home
Jacinda Ardern rarely repeats her mistakes. When she rose to power in 2017 New Zealand’s newly elected prime minister became a subject of fascination for progressives around the world; they regarded her as a kind of avatar of anti-Trumpism; a symbol of resistance to rightwing populism. This fascination intensified when she announced her pregnancy in early 2018. It grew again in the wake of the 15 March terror attack in 2019. She was praised as a beacon of hope; her image projected on to the side of the Burj Khalifa. The flattering media profiles multiplied.
Initially, Ardern leaned into this. New Zealand is small and remote – publishers of international maps forget we’re down here. So we’re often flattered when distance looks our way. Someone noticed we exist! Ardern’s international coverage was picked up by local media, delivering coverage the prime minister’s competitors couldn’t possibly match. Her global news presence was a deliberate strategy and a powerful weapon.
Continue reading...Prime minister has been elevated from a DJ in 2018 to ‘some kind of celestial being’ this year in traditional puppet event
A New Zealand pub, known for its lifesize puppets of New Zealand politicians, has unveiled one of Jacinda Ardern, who called it “a cross between some kind of celestial being and something from Game of Thrones”.
The Backbencher pub, opposite the parliament house in Wellington, has been creating politician puppets for 30 years, and on Tuesday night unveiled its second puppet of the prime minister.
Continue reading...New Zealand prime minister says she agreed to interviews on basis that it was about a group of female leaders and ‘not specific to me’
Jacinda Ardern has distanced herself from a recently released biography documenting her leadership style, less than a week after joining widespread criticism of a film that focuses on her role leading New Zealand during the Christchurch terror attacks.
The new book – Jacinda Ardern: Leading with Empathy – was written by activist and journalist Supriya Vani, and writer Carl A. Harte, based on “Vani’s exclusive interviews with Ardern”, according to its seller, Simon & Schuster.
Continue reading...Australian and New Zealand prime ministers talk up closeness of ties as Ardern is forced to defend ‘soft’ stance on Beijing
The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, has warned that “there are those far from here that would seek to divide us”, during a press conference with his New Zealand counterpart, Jacinda Ardern, that focused on how the two countries handle China.
The leaders emphasised unity in the face of Beijing’s increasing regional influence and Morrison said any forces trying to scupper the partnership would not succeed.
Continue reading...There is only one way to really make a change in New Zealand is to raise the bottom more rapidly than the middle
“Today, we close a chapter on our past.” So said New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, on Thursday, as she launched a budget that included the largest increases to benefits since the 1940s. But although she should be congratulated for finally taking concrete steps to attack poverty and inequality, there is a real danger of celebrating too soon.
Child poverty is one of our much-lauded prime minister’s signature issues, and she has committed herself to ambitious targets that require hardship rates to be cut by as much as two-thirds by 2028. If achieved, this would be an exceptional feat, a rapid reduction that would place New Zealand among the world’s best performers.
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