Auckland financier and developer James
Kellow. “We used to be a net exporter of
energy. That was quite a shock to busi
ness.” Apart from that, he says, the busi
ness community is content with the
Labour government. “They haven’t had
that big an effect on the economy because
they haven’t changed that much,” he says.
Unemployment is at 4% and annual GDP
growth is at 2.7%, which is higher than in
the U.S. and the U.K.
But Ardern finds her more ambitious
dreams stymied by domestic setbacks.
To deal with New Zealand’s astronomi
cally high housing prices, Ardern prom
ised 100,000 affordable homes in a de
cade and 1,000 in her first year in office,
but only 47 houses later, those targets
were scrapped as infeasible. As of the
end of last year, 315 houses had been
built. Infrastructure has also proved tobe a challenge; Labour canceled the roads
projects started by the outgoing govern
ment to use the funds elsewhere, but has
recently restarted them. And Ardern tried
and failed to pass a capital gains tax to re
dress income inequality.
Most frustrating of all is the issue of
children. Ardern is fond of saying she
wants New Zealand to be the best place
in the world to be a child. So far it just
isn’t. On average, a child is killed there
every five weeks. The country has the
highest rate of 15 to 19yearold sui
cide in the developed world. Ardern ap
pointed herself the Minister for Child
Poverty Reduction and, while still on
parental leave, announced that all fam
ilies would receive a benefit of $60 a
week for the first year of a child’s life and
some for three years as part of a larger
Families Package. In a video from her
couch, she called it “the thing I’m most
proud of ” since she took office.
But 2½ years into her tenure, the num
bers haven’t budged. “There has been a
spectacular change in emphasis that we
would never have dreamed about when
I arrived,” says Children’s Commissioner
Andrew Becroft, who has been in the role
of national watchdog for children’s rights
for three years and who praises Ardern for
the steps she has taken so far. “But on the
statistics we have to date, we don’t have
the evidence that there has been any fun
damental change in the welfare of chil
dren.” There’s an 18month lag in report
ing, so he hopes to see some improvement
soon. But he points to the difference in the
welfare of New Zealand’s elderly, who re
ceive government assistance indexed to
economic growth, and the nation’s chil
dren, who have been disadvantaged by
stagnant welfare payments. He would like
the government to use the budget surplus
it has been growing since 2015 to redress
this imbalance. “In a sense, the growth
for New Zealand has been at the expense
of its most marginalized children for the
last 30 years,” he says.
Ardern’s hands are tied to some extent,
because her centerleft party is in a co
alition government with two other par
ties, the farleft Greens and centerright
NZ First, which have their own priorities.
The system relies on compromise to get
things done, which can limit the rate of
progress. She set a challenging target for
greenhouse gas emissions, reducing them^
Ardern at an Islamic Women’s
Council of New Zealand conference
in Auckland in Augustto net zero by 2050 but, under pressure
from NZ First, had to exclude the biogenic
methane produced by the agricultural
industry —the country’s biggest.
Many of her supporters suggest that
her party and administration have a
knowledge and experience gap; before
Ardern took power, the Labour Party had
been in opposition for nine years. Draw
ing enough votes for Labour in the elec
tion could allow Ardern to form a coalition
with only the Greens and have a better
shot at governing the way she wants.
If Ardern is anxious about any of this,
she doesn’t show it at a soiree for the press
at the official Prime Minister’s residence
in Wellington on Feb. 12. She and Gay
ford are dressed casually (she in sneak
ers, he barefoot in shorts), trying to keep
their 19monthold daughter, also in
shorts, from poking all the finger food.
They switch off watching over her, with
an aide swooping in as needed.
At one point, Neve is allowed to bang
on the grand piano, although her perfor
mance goes largely ignored. She does,
however, have a surefire party trick. Ar
dern runs through various animals, and
Neve, without removing her bottle from
her mouth, imitates the noises they make.
Eventually Ardern asks how adults sound.
“Blah blah blah,” her daughter chants, to
much laughter.
If Ardern loses the election, she will
have plenty of options, including simply
spending more time with the aforemen
tioned small piano player. Robertson, the
Finance Minister, sees her taking on one
of the more forward looking issues, like
climate change or child poverty. Many
of her antecedents went on to serve in
global institutions. New Zealand’s sec
ond national female Prime Minister,
Helen Clark, was head of the United Na
tions Development Programme and nar
rowly missed becoming the first female
U.N. SecretaryGeneral. Another Prime
Minister, Mike Moore, was the head of
the World Trade Organization. She could
follow his example. In some ways, she al
ready has. “Leadership,” Moore once said,
“is more than finding an angry crowd and
agreeing with it.”
Ardern says she has no idea what she
will do next. “Absolutely zero plan B. But
actually that’s not new,” she adds. “That’s
always been my way of being. It’s probably
CAM MCLAREN—GETTY IMAGES how I’ve ended up in politics.” □
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