Today, Explained - Jacinda

Episode Date: March 22, 2019

The terrorist attacks in New Zealand have thrust Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern into the spotlight. Radio New Zealand’s Jane Patterson explains the 38-year-old's improbable rise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Ash'hadu an la ilaha illallah. One week ago today, we found out about two shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Today, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern donned a headscarf and packed a Christchurch park along with thousands of her fellow Kiwis for the Muslim call to prayer. It was broadcast across the country and was followed by two minutes of silence. Ardern has spent a week giving the entire planet a clinic in how to heal after a violation of our humanity. Jane Patterson has been covering it for Radio New Zealand. Now, as soon as the news came through,

she cancelled all of her events and flew back to the capital city, Wellington, and we waited at Parliament to see the government response and what the Prime Minister would say. I have now had the opportunity to be fully briefed with the details of the unprecedented events that took place in Christchurch this afternoon. She came down and addressed the media about mid-evening on Friday night.

Now, it was probably one of the most emotional and difficult media conferences I have covered myself. For those of you who are watching at home tonight and questioning how this could have happened here, we, New Zealand, we were not a target because we are a safe harbour for those who hate. We were not chosen for this act of violence because we condone racism, because we are an enclave for extremism. We were chosen for the very fact that we are none of these things. There were journalists in tears and from then on really it has been a relentless 24-hour coverage of this story,

both the political aspects of it in terms of how the government is going to change laws like the gun laws, but also, of course, the intensely personal and traumatising stories of the victims and their families. Is it fair to say that this has been thus far the biggest test of your Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's still new term? Without doubt. In fact, I would argue that it's probably one of the biggest tests of any Prime Minister, barring the Christchurch earthquakes back in 2011. That was another massive event that Christchurch was really still recovering from

but certainly Jacinda Ardern suddenly found herself fronting this massive tragedy and I must say she has done it with dignity, with steel and with grace and I'm sure the Prime Minister has her own personal moments but at all times when she has been in front of the cameras, when she's been meeting the families, she has been calm and obviously empathetic. Now, we had a media stand-up with her at Parliament and she was asked if she goes home and cries at night and she said, I'd really prefer not to talk about those personal details.

Tell me about the tone she struck from the very beginning because it's sort of carried her through the week. The very strong message from Jacinda Ardern from the very outset was that the Muslim community is a greater part of New Zealand as any other community group or religious group. That was a point she was at pains to make. Many of those who will have been directly affected by the shooting may be migrants to New Zealand. They may even be refugees here. They have chosen to make New Zealand their home and it is their home. And the line that has come out from that is, they are us.

They are us. She would have been very keen not to create any impression at all that this was an attack supported by New Zealanders and also a message of support and compassion to the Muslim community that everyone was as horrified and appalled by this deliberate and specific attack on them as they would be. That was the first thing. The second thing was that the attacker would be given no mercy in New Zealand. He could not expect a soft ride in New Zealand. He is a terrorist. He is a criminal. He is an extremist.

But he will, when I speak, be nameless. And to others I implore you, speak the names of those who were lost rather than the name of the man who took them. He may have sought notoriety, but we in New Zealand will give him nothing, not even his name. Not long after that press conference, President Trump reached out to her and offered his help. He said, you know, what can the United States do? What was her response to him?

I spoke with Donald Trump this morning. He sought to call us directly. He very much wished for his condolences to be passed on to New Zealand. He asked what offer of support the United States could provide. My message was sympathy and love for all Muslim communities. How that was relayed to us in a media conference when she was asked about that conversation was that he acknowledged that and agreed.

And of course, there was a lot of anguish here about what our politicians, what our media and overseas politicians, how have they contributed to this? How could we have stopped this? So to hear those words from Donald Trump, whether he follows through or not, I think gives you an indication of how significant this event was. And I guess how different it was too. I can tell you one thing right now. Our gun laws will change. Another key difference here was that she immediately proposed policy changes

on gun control in New Zealand. Today I'm announcing that New Zealand will ban all military-style semi-automatic weapons. We will also ban all assault rifles. We will ban all high-capacity magazines. We will ban all parts with the ability to convert semi-automatic or any other type of firearm into a military-style semi-automatic weapon. In short, every semi-automatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on Friday

will be banned in this country. When you actually take a look at New Zealand's gun laws, they are very lax compared to Australia, Canada, and in some cases, even the United States. Now partly that's because I think we don't actually have a massive problem with gun crime in New Zealand. We have a gun lobby, we have farmers and we have hunters. They are probably the more powerful voice but we do not carry weapons and maybe that's why there hasn't been such a focus on gun enforcement. There are problems with gangs here and also problems with actually a huge number

of weapons that just are not known to police because in New Zealand we register the owners but we do not register the weapons. So people like the Christchurch gunman can build up a massive cache of weapons and the police have no idea about it. So there's a huge tide of public support to crack down immediately on weapons and their dissemination in New Zealand. The Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, said that New Zealand's history has changed forever and now its laws would change too. It's in the national interest and it's about safety to prevent an act of terror happening in our country ever again.

I think so far we've been talking about things that you may have heard of if you're following this news, be it in New Zealand or internationally. Are there things that international audiences may have missed that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern did this week between the shooting and now? Most of what she has done has had intense public coverage. And I think it would be more the reaction of people on the ground that the international community isn't seeing,

just the sheer shock and the ground that the international community isn't seeing, just the sheer shock and the turmoil and the trauma that New Zealand is going through at the moment. As Kiwis, we like to pride ourselves on being peaceful, of accepting and tolerant, and that is very much the self-image that New Zealanders have of themselves and like to be seen by other countries. So the questions, how did this happen in our small little country down at the bottom of the world? Now, one slight comfort is that the gunman is an Australian citizen. He is not a New Zealander.

That is a very, very slight comfort. Part of the way that people are dealing with it is to offer support, not just to the direct victims in Christchurch, but also to the Muslim community, to the immigrant community around the country. And of course, we've been having huge vigils around New Zealand and they haven't been government organised, they've been gatherings of people who have just come together because they wanted that sense of community. And that stands in such stark contrast to rising Islamophobia we're seeing around the world and even from political leaders around the world. I wonder if there's been any criticism of how much she's done to embrace Muslim communities.

Not at all. In fact, quite the opposite. I think New Zealanders have been proud and glad that the Prime Minister has reflected the feeling and grief within the communities. As I said, it very much comes down to that sense of self-identity. Now, there may be some people in New Zealand who think she's been a bit over the top, but I haven't seen or heard anyone who has a negative word to say about the way she's presented herself in New Zealand. And what do you think lies ahead for her in the coming weeks in dealing with this? This is where it's going to be incredibly difficult and challenging. We're going to have a number of burials.

We're going to have a court case. And then back at Parliament, we're going to have law changes. And these challenges and these disasters either make or break leaders. Now this tragedy is going to require immense leadership and Jacinda Ardern and the government has full public support now but whether that starts to crumble as difficult issues are dealt with that is when her leadership is really going to be put to the test. tātou whakaranga whakaranga whakaranga kia whakaranga whakaranga kia whakaranga whakaranga kia whakaranga whakaranga Jane, we've got this guy in the United States, Mayor Pete, Pete Buttigieg. He's running for president. He's 37 years old.

And it seems like a long shot of long shots. But Jacinda Ardern became prime minister at the exact same age. Where does her story begin? She grew up in central North Island in a little place called Morrinsville, and her parents were Mormons. So she grew up in a very religious, conservative background, but moved away from that partly because she had very liberal social ideas in terms of the likes of homosexuality, and they really began to rub against her Mormon upbringing.

She's still very, very close to her family, but has moved away from her faith. New Zealand is a relatively secular country in terms of politics in particular. New Zealanders tend not to like having religion inserted into their politics. Now I'm not saying that had anything to do with Jacinda Ardern's personal decisions but that's the broader context of the society that she was growing up in as a young person. And how'd she get into politics? She was the president of the society that she was growing up in as a young person. And how'd she get into politics? She was the president of the International Association of Young Socialists, and it was a natural path for her to join the Labour Party.

She came to Parliament in 2008 as a member of that Labour caucus and had a meteoric rise to the leadership just a few years ago. So when she's a member of Parliament, does she have her eyes on becoming Prime Minister at her young age, I imagine? She was always touted as a potential leader, but actually her youth was always seen as something that wouldn't get her there quite yet. She would always do whatever role she was asked to by her caucus, which of course left the door very, very wide

open. Now, she had a couple of very interesting elections against another young woman, Nikki Kaye, and failed to win the Auckland electorate. Was Nikki Kaye the Battle of the Babes one? You will never hear me say the Battle of the Babes in terms of that race. I thought it was an incredibly sexist way to describe two very credible and very capable politicians. However, that race was given the moniker, and I just did utter it. But yeah, they were fierce competitors. Now, Nikki Kaye is a former Minister of Education.

They are both young, bright, attractive female MPs, which is why things like Battle of the Babes was applied to their electorate race. And they were tough races. They were very close in two elections. And that was partly why there were questions around Jacinda Ardern being able to galvanise the national vote. But the stars really started to align for her in 2017. And just six weeks before the election,

the then leader Andrew Little, in the face of dismal poll ratings, quit and she took over. And that began her path into the role of Prime Minister. Because of her age or her gender, was she at all treated differently during the 2017 campaign for Prime Minister? Yes, she was. Hey, I've got a question and we've been discussing today whether I'm allowed to ask it or not. She was asked, do you intend to have children while you're Prime Minister and would that

compromise your performance? It was on a morning radio TV show, and she was very strong in her response. It is totally unacceptable in 2017 to say that women should have to answer that question in the workplace. But this is my point. I'm going to count that. No, it is unacceptable in 2017. It is a woman's decision about when they choose to have children. It should not predetermine whether or not they are given a job or have job opportunities. And the point that she made and that other commentators made

was that is never a question that is put to male politicians in the same time of their life. And she basically told the male interviewer that it was none of his business. Now's the time to build a better, fairer future for New Zealand. So what were some highlights of the campaign? She came up on the spot with a campaign slogan, let's do this. Now throughout her whole time as both an MP and then as leader, Jacinda Ardern had a very, very good social media game.

I do my own social media. It's all me. So I run my own channel and I always will. And she had a massive following on Instagram and Twitter and those sorts of platforms, and that was utilised immediately. There was no time to be groomed as leader because the moment I became leader, a campaign started, so I only had the choice to be myself. The highlight of the campaign was just suddenly having this new and engaging young leader who had literally come out of the blue to take over from successive Labour Party leaders

who had really tried and failed to restore the party's support. She immediately engaged with the public and brought Labour's poll ratings much higher through that election campaign. The other element of her leadership was that through the negotiations for the coalition, she was able to form a very strong and respectful relationship with Winston Peters, who's now deputy prime minister. Now, he is an old war horse. He is a conservative, tough, wily politician. And it was her relationship with him that enabled her to eventually be able to put together the government. And this is what, in October of 2017? That's right.

Now, interestingly, her contender was Bill English. He was a very very long serving member of the National Party government. He was the finance minister for many years and it became very much a generational debate. Bill English was of the baby boomer generation. Now National actually won the popular vote but because of our M system, Jacinda Ardern was able to get the Greens and New Zealand First together to be able to get enough votes to form that coalition government. This is a democracy. Of course not everybody voted for us, but we vow that regardless of who you voted for, this will be a government for all New Zealanders.

How does New Zealand react to its new 37-year-old Prime Minister? The left was delighted because there had been a strong and popular national government in place for about 10 years. And when Jacinda Ardern was elected, there were still a lot of questions, as I said, about her youth, her inexperience in the leadership role. And soon after, it followed a number of international events that really gave her her profile. It was only a few months after the government was formed, she announced that she was pregnant. Aside from all of the usual excitement that we both share over this news,

and the fact that it was a surprise for us, we have also put in place plans to deal with our impending arrival. So another first, and that garnered a huge amount of international attention. Jacinda Ardern giving birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl, 7.3 pounds. Ms. Ardern is only the second world leader to give birth while in office. It's a real pleasure to introduce our little one to you all and to New Zealand. The name that we've chosen for our little girl is Nii Te Araha Ardern-Gayford. How important was it for New Zealand to elect a female prime minister in her mid-30s?

Is it not a big deal there? Because obviously it'd be a huge deal here. It was probably more her youth, to be honest. We had a very strong female prime minister in Helen Clark for nearly a decade, and we had Jenny Shipley before that. We have had New Zealand Governors General, who is our technical head of state. We've had female chief justices. So having women in power wasn't that big a deal, really, for New Zealanders. We were pretty used to that idea. It was more her youth. I think part of it, though, is her brand, the feminine versus masculine approach, if I can put it that way. And wrapped around that was that politics should be a kinder place.

Now, politics is as robust as it ever has been. But certainly the politics should be kind brand is very much part of Jacinda Ardern. And I would have to say has actually stood her in very good stead for this situation. I can't tell if it's a tragedy or sort of fate that a young politician who ran essentially on kindness is now defining herself in the face of this grotesque tragedy and grotesque act of hate. People look to the prime ministers to do right by everybody involved in those tragedies. Probably people would say, poor Mazar Dern having to deal with this as a young woman. Other people would say it will make her as prime minister and it will place her firmly in the annals of history.

Jane Patterson is the politics editor at Radio New Zealand. She and her team have been covering the shooting and the aftermath all week. You can check out their outstanding work at radionz.co.nz. Or as she would have put it, radionz.co.nz. I'm Sean Ramos-Virum. This is Today Explained. Before we go for the weekend, a quick plug for another podcast. This one is called Work Life with Adam Grant. Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist who takes you inside the minds of some of the world's most unusual professionals

to explore the science of making work not suck. This week, he's got a dude named Brad Bird. You might have heard of him. He made The Incredibles and also The Incredibles 2. Check out that incredible episode of Work Life with Adam Grant wherever you listen to your podcasts.