Wellington: In her final speech to New Zealand’s parliament on Wednesday, Jacinda Ardern described in emotional terms how she handled a pandemic and mass shootings during her five-year term as prime minister. She also told humorous anecdotes about how one European leader so admired Ardern’s chief-of-staff’s striking hair that she flaunted it like a hairdresser, whom she jokingly helped secure a free-trade deal. , and how his mother once sent him an uplifting, if somewhat grandiose, message: “Remember, even Jesus had people who didn’t like him.”
On a more serious note, he urged lawmakers to take the politics out of climate change.
“There will always be policy differences,” Ardern said during her closing speech, wearing a traditional Maori cloak called a korowai. “But beneath that, we have what we need to make progress.”
When Ardern finished speaking after about 35 minutes, she was given a standing ovation by MPs from across the political spectrum and a rousing rendition of several indigenous Māori songs.
A global icon of the left and an inspiration to women around the world, Ardern stepped down as prime minister in January, saying “I don’t have enough in the tank to do justice. It’s that simple.” But she stayed on as a lawmaker until April to avoid triggering a special election before the country’s general elections in October.
Later this month, Ardern will start a new, unpaid role as special envoy for the Christchurch call to combat online extremism. It’s an initiative she launched with French President Emmanuel Macron in May 2019, two months after a white supremacist gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch.
She has also announced that she is joining the board of trustees for The Earthshot Prize, an environmental charity started by Britain’s Prince William.
Ardern said she entered politics based on her beliefs, but has become used to her term being defined by a different list.
“A domestic terror attack. A volcanic eruption. A pandemic. A series of events where I found myself during their saddest or most painful moments in people’s lives,” she said. “Their stories and faces are etched in my mind, and are likely to be forever.”
She also told how she and fiancé Clarke Gayford thought they might not be able to have children after a failed round of IVF.
“Instead of that process, I campaigned to be prime minister,” he joked. “A good distraction as far as they go. Imagine my surprise when a few months later, I found out I was pregnant.”
Ardern became only the second elected world leader to give birth while in office, after she and Gayford’s daughter Neve in 2018.
Ardern explained how she approached the COVID-19 pandemic on a scientific basis and how New Zealand did best among developed countries when measuring the extreme death rate.
She said she once tried to argue with a lone protester about a false conspiracy theory.
“But after many such experiences, and seeing the anger that often sits behind these conspiracies, I have to admit that I was wrong,” she said. “I can’t get anyone out of the rabbit hole alone.”
Ardern said she worries that during the pandemic, the nation has lost a sense of security, and the ability to engage in robust debate in a respectful manner.
She also explained how she never thought she was made for the role of prime minister, and how it came about through a surprising series of events.
While she could not control how her tenure would be defined by others, Ardern said, she hoped it demonstrated something else.
“That you can be caring, sensitive, compassionate and wear your heart on your sleeve,” she said. “You may or may not be a mother, you may or may not be an ex-Mormon, you may or may not be a nerd, a weeper, a hugger, you may be all of these, and not only you Be here, you can lead like me.”