Jacinda Ardern

Jacinda Ardern (born July 26, 1980, Hamilton, New Zealand) is a New Zealand politician who in August 2017 became leader of the New Zealand Labour Party and then in October 2017, at age 37, became the country’s youngest prime minister in more than 150 years. She resigned as prime minister in January 2023.

Early life and start in politics

The second of two daughters born to a Mormon family, Ardern spent her first years in Murupara, a small town best known as a centre of Māori gang activity, where seeing “children without shoes on their feet or anything to eat for lunch” inspired her to eventually enter politics. Her father—a career law-enforcement officer who later (2014) became the New Zealand government’s high commissioner to the island of Niue—moved his family to Morrinsville, southeast of Auckland on New Zealand’s North Island, where Ardern attended primary and secondary school. She matriculated to the University of Waikato in 1999.

Even before earning a bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies (2001), Ardern began her association with the Labour Party. In 1999, at age 17, she joined the party and, with the help of an aunt, became involved in the reelection campaign of Harry Duynhoven, a Labour member of parliament (MP) in the New Plymouth district. Following graduation, Ardern became a researcher for another Labour MP, Phil Goff. That experience would lead to a position on the staff of Prime Minister Helen Clark, the second woman to hold New Zealand’s highest office and Ardern’s political hero and mentor.

In 2005 Ardern embarked on an “overseas experience,” an extended—usually working—trip to Britain, which is a traditional rite of passage for the children of New Zealand’s middle and upper class. Instead of labouring in a London pub or warehouse and then touring the Continent, however, Ardern worked for two and a half years in the cabinet office of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, serving as an associate director for Better Regulation Executive with the primary responsibility of improving the ways in which local authorities interact with small businesses. In 2007 she was elected president of the International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY), a position that took her to destinations such as Algeria, China, India, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon.

In 2008 Ardern was chosen as Labour’s candidate for MP of the Waikato district, a seat that historically had been beyond the party’s reach and that Ardern lost by some 13,000 votes. Nevertheless, she entered parliament as a list candidate. New Zealand’s mixed member proportional (MMP) election system allows candidates who run for a district seat also to be on a party’s list of candidates, from which 49 MPs are chosen in proportion to the number of votes received by their parties. At age 28 Ardern entered the House of Representatives as its youngest member. In her maiden speech she called for the introduction of compulsory instruction in the Māori language in New Zealand schools and she castigated the New Zealand government for what she characterized as its “shameful” response to climate change. In addition to being named Labour’s spokesperson for Youth Affairs, Ardern was appointed to the Regulations Review and the Justice and Electoral select committees.

In 2011 she ran for the seat representing Auckland Central that was held by another of New Zealand politics’ brightest young stars, Nikki Kaye of the New Zealand National Party, who was just five months older than Ardern. Kaye narrowly (717 votes) won the race, dubbed the “Battle of the Babes,” but once again Ardern returned to parliament as a well-placed list candidate. Ardern’s support for David Shearer in his successful quest for Labour leadership won her a high profile assignment as Social Development spokesperson. In 2014 Ardern once again faced off with Kaye for the Auckland Central seat, this time losing by only 600 votes. Nonetheless, ensconced at the number five position on Labour’s list, Ardern easily returned to parliament. Labour leader Andrew Little expanded her portfolio to include positions as spokesperson for Arts, Culture, and Heritage, Children, Justice, and Small Business.

As Ardern’s political profile increased in prominence, the details of her personality and personal life became better known. Opposed to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ stand on homosexuality and same-sex marriage, Ardern became a lapsed Mormon. She gained notoriety by performing as a disc jockey. She was also involved in a romantic relationship with broadcast personality Clarke Gayford, who in 2016 became the host of Fish of the Day, a part-fishing, part-travel television program that took him to exotic island locales throughout the Pacific. Ardern bridled at media attention to her physical attractiveness, characterized herself as an “acceptable nerd,” and described her approach to life as “relentlessly positive.”

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Ardern becomes party leader

In 2017 Ardern registered a landslide victory in the parliamentary by-election for the vacant seat representing the solidly Labour district of Mount Albert in Auckland. When Labour’s deputy leader, Annette King, announced her resignation, Ardern was unanimously elected as her replacement. Meanwhile, as the general parliamentary election scheduled for September 2017 approached, Labour’s showing in preference polling was abysmal. Even after some nine consecutive years with the National Party in power, there was seemingly little interest among voters in trying Labour Party rule. A pair of polls in July found Labour Party support to be less than 25 percent—some 6 percent worse than the party’s standing in a June polling. With fewer than two months left before the election, Little stepped down as leader but not before securing Ardern’s pledge to stand as his replacement (reportedly, she refused seven times before agreeing). Running unopposed, Ardern was elected leader on August 1.