Martin Hanson
While still at the height of her popularity, “Jacinda Ardern: Leading with Empathy”, a biography of the New Zealand Prime Minister, was published. It was described by the publisher as “a major biography of one of the most important and inspirational leaders of the twenty-first century”.
20 months later came her shock resignation. The UK Daily Mail reported that Ardern had said that she “wanted to be remembered for her kindness”.
Among the eulogies that followed (some verging on the sycophantic), many emphasised her “kindness and empathy”:
Thank you for your partnership and your friendship – and for your empathic, compassionate, strong, and steady leadership over these past several years.
–Justin Trudeau, Canadian prime minister.
Her leadership was shaped and defined by a series of national and international crises – and her responses in those pressured moments, which repeatedly emphasised the values of empathy, humanity and kindness, will likely form the standout legacy of her political career.
– Tess McClure, The Guardian
New Zealand’s Ardern leaves legacy of kindness, disappointments
– Praveen Menon, Reuters
Empathetic, humane
– Toby Manhire NZ journalist.
Jacinda Ardern brought ‘compassion and kindness as well as strength’ to her leadership
– Sky News
Jacinda Ardern reminds us that kindness and strength are not mutually exclusive
–Anthony Albanese, Australian Prime Minister
Among the voters, not all the sentiments were as obsequious. Many were abusive; Ding Dong the witch is gone was one of the milder ones. The most extreme compared her to Hitler. Part of a poster read:
WANTED
FOR THE OFFENCES OF
Treason, Genocide, Fraud, Murder, Terrorism, War
Crimes, Violations of the Conventions of Human Rights,
Violations of the Nuremberg Code, Malfeasance and
Misconduct in Public Office
The near-universal response of New Zealand media was to accuse Ardern’s detractors of an unrelenting campaign of vicious, often crude, misogyny. The only journalist to deal objectively with the issue of such ‘misogyny’ was Graham Adams in an op-ed piece “The martyrdom of Jacinda Ardern”, in which he puts media bias in the spotlight:
The glaring double standard in what abuse is tolerated for men and women is perhaps best exemplified by the reaction in 2017 to a five-metre-high statue of then Environment Minister Nick Smith showing him defecating as he crouched over a glass with his genitals exposed.
Artist Sam Mahon made the statue [out of horse dung] as a protest over Smith allegedly allowing the pollution of our waterways. Not only did Mahon parade the statue outside Environment Canterbury’s offices in central Christchurch, it received widespread coverage both locally and overseas, including by the BBC.
One can imagine the media explosion that would have resulted had Nick Smith been a woman, but New Zealand Herald journalist Kurt Meyer merely described it as “cheeky”.
What the media journalists don’t seem to realise, or conveniently forget, is that such double standards imply that women are held to be psychologically more fragile than men, needing correspondingly greater protection.
What can be the explanation for this orgy of accusations of misogyny? Either the media journalists are stupid (most are not) or it is a means of distracting attention from the very real public anger that has driven Ardern from office.
In the free speech vacuum that is New Zealand today, I shall devote much of what follows to giving some reasons why the anger against Ardern and her then government is more than justified. Her transgressions can be characterised as
- broken promises
- malfeasance
- cruelty
- malice
- divisiveness
Taken together, they go a considerable way to justifying at least some of the descriptors in the poster I cited earlier.
Broken promises.
On 22 Sept, 2020, Jacinda Ardern was interviewed by Duncan Garner on the AM Show, in which (13:24) she was asked:
“Will people who refuse to take the Covid-19 vaccine be banned from travelling internationally or be at the end of tax penalties?”
In her reply, Ardern implied that her government would not force people to take the vaccine. It’s possible she thought that she had left herself some wiggle room by not stating unequivocally that Kiwis wouldn’t be forced to have the injection. She might have forgotten that two weeks earlier, Rachel Sadler of NewsHub had reported that, at a press conference, Health Minister Chris Hipkins (13:35) had slammed the ‘deliberate misinformation’ that the Government was reportedly going to make COVID-19 vaccinations compulsory.
Chris Hipkins said on Thursday that these false reports have been circulating social media and have caused many concerned members of the public to contact him.
Sadler continued by quoting Hipkins:
“This morning, I spent some time signing out correspondence, as we do as ministers, and I have to say I was alarmed at the number of letters I’ve received from people concerned that the Government would be making COVID-19 vaccinations compulsory,’ he said during a press conference.
“This is a direct result of deliberate misinformation that’s being spread through social media. The Government is not making COVID-19 or any other vaccinations compulsory.”
He added while the Government will encourage New Zealanders to get vaccinated once one is available, “it won’t make it compulsory”.
In case it’s thought that Hipkins was talking out of turn, a couple of weeks later, Dan Satherley of Newshub reported that:
Conspiracy theorists have claimed a COVID-19 vaccine, when available, will be “forced” on everyone – including Kiwis.
The Government rubbished those claims, made most notably by Jami-Lee Ross and Billy Te Kahika’s Advance NZ.
The New Zealand Public Party (NZPP) had issued a video titled, Say No to Labour’s Forced Vaccinations Agenda. In a Newshub article titled “Dangerous and misleading” Vita Molyneux reported that the video had stated that:
Labour passed a law change… They gave themselves the power… To force citizens to be vaccinated.
I haven’t been able to see the video, so it’s possible that the NZPP had been mistaken in the bit about ‘a law change’. But its take-home message, that New Zealanders would be compelled to be vaccinated, was absolutely correct. So much for the ‘conspiracy theorists’.
These promises to the New Zealand public were broken as, one by one, vaccine mandates were introduced. First the border workers, then the armed services and police, then health workers and teachers and finally, all members of the public who want to enter public enclosed spaces such as bars and restaurants. Thus workers had to choose between the jab or the loss of their livelihood.
Significantly, this ‘choice’ was not portrayed for what it actually was. In a verbal sleight of hand, Michael Neilson of The New Zealand Herald (12 Nov 2021) said:
Millions of New Zealand workers will soon be covered by mandates to be vaccinated against Covid-19, or potentially be forced to leave their jobs. (bold emphasis added).
A health professional I know chose not to be jabbed, but he assures me that he did not ‘leave’ his job – his employer prevented him from working.
The mandates were a fundamental breach of the 1990 Bill of Rights Act, Section 11:
Everyone has the right to refuse to undergo any medical treatment.
This step-by-step breach of fundamental democratic rights brings to mind German Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous poem, written after his release from a concentration camp in 1945. He had been arrested by the Gestapo in 1937 for his criticism of Nazi totalitarianism:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
Small wonder, then, that the vaccine mandates generated considerable anger and, for some who had lost their livelihood, real hatred. In clear breach of its promise, the government was forcing people to submit to the injection of an experimental product – or lose their livelihood.
To be continued…
