Review: Vivien Horler 

A Different Kind of Power, by Jacinda Ardern (Macmillan)

The first time former New Zealand prime minister made an impression on me was watching her being interviewed live on TV in the Beehive, the equivalent of SA’s Union Buildings.

The journalist is in a studio and they’re discussing planning permission issues, when Ardern pauses, looks around and says: “We’re just having a bit of an earthquake here, Ryan, quite a decent shake.”

Then with a broad smile she says to the camera: “If you see things moving behind me.”

(Bizarrely the Beehive faces on to a Wellington street that actually runs along a faultline that can – and does – move at any time. This is part of the charms of living on a pair of islands on the edge of the Pacific’s “ring of fire”.)

The journalist asks her if it has stopped, and she says it has. He asks if she is all right, and can continue, and she says: “No, we’re fine, Ryan, I’m not under any hanging lights, and we’re in a structurally sound building.” And the interview proceeds.

Wow, I thought, wow. How impressive is that! (You can find that clip on YouTube. It’s still impressive.)

Possibly the picture of Ardern everyone remembers is that of her, taken through a window at a Christchurch community centre a day or two after the ghastly mosque attacks during Friday prayers that left 51 people dead and scores injured.. They were done by an Australian.

Immediately after Ardern was informed of the attack on the two mosques, she says of her reaction: “All of the confusion and frustration I felt turned into one singular emotion: blinding rage … A manifesto. A planned attack. So much hatred.”

She knew she would have to address the nation, but didn’t know what to say. She rang her long-time mentor and ranted: “An outsider came in and attacked our people. Some of them might have been born somewhere else, but this was our community. They are New Zealanders. They are us.”

Her mentor replied: “Jacinda. Just say that.”

At her urging, New Zealand reformed its gun laws in just 10 days. By the end of  2019, she reports, 56 000 weapons had been handed in and destroyed.

In this autobiography she describes her growing interest in politics as a young schoolgirl, her skill in debating competitions, her debilitating nervousness beforehand. One day a teacher, whom she greatly admired, told her he too suffered from nervousness, despite having once taken part in a UN student debating competition.

The nervousness was a result of a phenomenon called “impostor syndrome”, he told her. She came to see this as her secret weapon.

Jacinda Ardern grew up in a Mormon family with her parents and sister in a small logging town on the North Island, where her father was a policeman. Her grandparents had a farm, and she could ride a horse, drive a tractor, pick apples. Many of the residents were Maori, and her influential teacher taught New Zealand history and the turbulent story of the Maori and the British colonisers.

This book could have been titled The Making of a Politician, but as we know, Ardern was not a typical politician. The narrative begins with her sitting in a bathroom waiting for two pieces of life-changing news: deliberations were taking place which could mean she was about to be New Zealand’s 40^th prime minister, and she was awaiting the result of a pregnancy test.

As we all know, she became prime minister just as she embarked on a much longed-for pregnancy with her TV broadcaster husband Clarke, a man in this recounting who comes across as a saint.

She describes being present at the opening of parliament in the first moments of her premiership, suffering from morning sickness and listening to the speech of New Zealand’s governor-general, telling herself: “Don’t vomit. Don’t vomit.” (She didn’t).

She describes driving to Government House that day speaking to a veteran journalist who asked her what she wanted to achieve as prime minster.

She thought about it and replied: “I want this government to feel different. I want people to feel that’s it’s open, that it’s listening, and that it’s going to bring kindness back.”

Kindness.

Watching as a farflung admirer, I thought Jacinda Ardern was amazing. She seemed to care, to be in touch. I doubt she ever drove in a blue-light convoy.

And yet, post-Covid, when the country had some of the strictest rules in terms of admission to New Zealand – and the lowest number of deaths – Kiwis’ opinions of her soured.

In January 2020 – just before Covid – I visited New Zealand with a British pal and we were sounding off to a South African immigrant friend how much we admired Ardern. “We don’t like her much at all,” she said.

After Covid, attitudes soured further. Ardern described being in a public loo at an airport when a woman approached her and said: “Thank you. Thank you for ruining the country.”

Around this time she had a medical, and a lump was found in her breast. Before it was diagnosed as benign, Ardern thought: “I could leave.”

It was a rogue thought, but it grew in strength. And she did.

I read this book with great interest, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Her charm – watch the YouTube clup to see what I mean – her rural background, her care for the underdog, her genuine commitment to making New Zealand a better place for all, are disarming. And her description of the events around the Christchurch massacre brought me close to tears.