New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has resigned after months of rumours. Ardern, whose popularity has plummeted during the last six months, told us “she had nothing left in the tank”.
The backstory to this resignation is a tale of woe. Ardern said she wants to be remembered as someone who tried to be kind. The subtext is: the country is in an unprecedented mess but don’t blame me.
Last year school attendance was reported as running at just 67% on any given day. Machete wielding teenagers are ram raiding liquor outlets, vape shops, dairies, and jewelry stores daily in a frenzied crime wave. The health system is overwhelmed. Ardern’s government promised to build 100,000 new homes over three years. It has delivered just 1,500 to date.
Our tourist, farming, and hospitality industries have not recovered from lockdowns and border closures. It now takes weeks to get a visa to visit New Zealand (it used to take two days) and the Government says it only wants rich people to come. No wonder, we are all poor now.
Ardern famously insisted on universal Covid vaccination mandates. There is a suspicion that our 90% vaccination rate has left everyone in a lethargic fog. Excess all cause deaths are still running 15% above the long term trends, and it is not Covid.
History will judge Ardern harshly, but don’t blame her alone. This was a Parliament who woke up on all sides of the house to the weakness of our constitutional arrangements (there are none worth the name). The Bill of Rights was tossed aside, and no one in Parliament cared.
The leader of the National opposition Chris Luxon famously said pre-pandemic if he was in power, he would withdraw benefits from unvaccinated single mothers. David Seymour, leader of the ACT party wrote on his FB those losing their jobs through vaccine mandates only had themselves to blame. Labour’s coalition partners, the Greens, led by example, encouraging mothers in labour to ride to hospital on a bicycle (yes they did).
Politicians of all parties were afraid to meet protestors and turned the hoses on them rather than listen to their concerns.
Revelations this week (here and here) that Ardern personally overruled her scientific advisors who were expressing doubts about the safety of Covid vaccines for young people and the wisdom of mandates, have circulated very widely and no doubt this has further undermined confidence in the government.
Ardern introduced ‘rule by regulation’. Adopting the enabling model favoured by fascists in the 1930s, her Government has empowered authorities to tell us all what to do, when to stay at home, and where not to go. The courts, the Human Rights Commission, and the broadcast regulators have all followed the Government line meticulously which has had a devastating effect on business, families, communities, and professions. To cement her policies, Ardern introduced massive Government funding of our media and broadcasters – a hallmark of repressive regimes.
Ardern was a protege of Tony Blair and a graduate of the Klaus Schwab World Economic Forum young leaders program. Both must shoulder some blame too. What fantasies of global power did they offer to a young person who was given to idealistic dreaming that segued into fanaticism?
Ardern’s Government, in an absurd overreach, has also funded a nationwide effort to discredit critics of policy, labelling them terrorists. This has divided a formerly egalitarian society, instituting a snitch culture that encourages us to dob in a neighbour. Government Disinformation Project employees appeared on funded films aired on television to a backdrop of atomic bombs exploding and Nazi stormtroopers marching. Absurdly they labelled knitting, blond hair, braids, vaccine hesitancy, love of natural foods, Yoga, and yes motherhood as signs of terrorism that should be reported to the intelligence services (yes they did, view it here on TVNZ if you can stand watching this nasty piece of propaganda and hate).
Why did Ardern suddenly change overnight in August 2021 from being a kindly figure saying she would never mandate vaccines, to being one of the world’s most draconian proponents? We can only speculate. New Zealand is a member of the five eyes intelligence network. Given the Pentagon’s recently revealed massive involvement in U.S. Covid policy and gain of function research funding, was she fed information that a bioweapon was in play? We will likely never know.
The cynical will say that Ardern left early to avoid the ignominy of U-turns and election defeat. Leaving open the possibility of political rebirth. The New York Times wrote this morning that Ardern, like Helen Clark, is in line for a global role and a bigger platform. We live in dread.
For a couple of weeks now Government announcements and advertisements encouraging vaccination and boosters have been conspicuously absent. Has the penny finally dropped? We doubt it. It will take an honest, intelligent politician (are there any left?) to roll back Ardern’s dictatorial powers and kickstart New Zealand. Why would any aspiring newbie give up that much power? The prospect will be too intoxicating, but that is what it will take. Someone has to rise above the mire of our current politics and realise that governments should represent the interests of people. Leadership is about fulfilling the aspirations of your followers, not just telling them what to do.
Our final verdict: It is not Ardern, but the whole New Zealand Parliament elected in 2020 that will be judged as the worst in our short history as an independent island nation, formerly famous for championing the underdog and offering opportunity to all. Ardern’s resignation lights a bonfire of the excesses of modern democracy. To find a way ahead, at the very least, the New Zealand Bill of Rights needs to be entrenched beyond the reach of power hungry politicians and compliant courts.
Guy Hatchard, who lives in New Zealand, is an international advocate of food safety and natural medicine. Read more of his journalism in the Hatchard Report. This article first appeared on TCW Defending Freedom.
Stop Press: Fraser Nelson isn’t very impressed by Jacinda Ardern either. Read his political obit in today’s Telegraph.
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Good riddance I say. Surprised that I am the only one who has spotted a remake of Mr Ed is in planning and I wonder if that is where she is off to?
LOL
It’s whenever she’d announce or answer questions regarding her cruel, unnecessary and draconian restrictions, she always did so with a huge smile. I mean, if that isn’t the sign of an out and out psychopathic biatch I dunno what is. She demonstrably enjoyed tormenting and causing misery to the population. And is she also a mother? If she is someone should get social services involved. Seriously, what kind of role model is she and how can we expect any Ardern offspring to turn out with somebody who completely lacks compassion, empathy or humanity. Despicable, nasty and hateful woman. No wonder Kiwis reacted like this;
https://rumble.com/v267u2a-new-zealanders-react-to-jacinda-ardern-announcing-her-resignation….html
So true. She is a cold-blooded psychopath.
I wish that video were real but it is not! It is a meme with Jacinda put onto it.
She did it all with a smile because she believed she was being “kind”.
No flies on you!!
Let’s not forget how many so-called Conservative journalists in the Daily Telegraph loved this woman.
Stand in the Park Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near Everyman Cinema & play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE
Well said. Sadly the Telegraph is no more trustworthy that the BBC.
“Ardern, like Helen Clarke, is in line for a Global role and a bigger platform”. Thus proving the much attributed maxim: “Nothing succeeds like failure.”
‘Madder than Mad Jack McMad……..’
It is very relevant that Ardern and Trudeau were both acolytes of Klaus Schwab and both followed policies which could only be described as Autocratic and looking Fascist .
Indeed, Castreau has revealed his formerly latent autocratic and fascist tendencies.
Real chip off the ol’ block, eh?
If only the people of NZ will wake up and realise the government is fascist…
…it’s pretty much everywhere…replace New Zealand with Canada, UK, Austria, Germany….take your pick!……
if only this was the start of a domino effect of resignations from the whole damn lot of them…..
Let’s hope so!
People are wising up to the WEF and their work putting young politicians, civil servants and aspiring businessmen into power. As their agenda becomes clear and people start to notice the common thread that the most vicious, callous, uncaring, pro-lockdown, pro-vaccine coercion politicians are all graduates of a peculiar organisation that resembles a cult, I suspect we’ll see more resignations.
Larry Fink at Davos even seemed rattled enough to use the already-tired claim that ‘disinformation’ is being used against organisations such as BlackRock. After what the human race has been put through, the more Fink and the media scream ‘conspiracy theories!’ the more people won’t believe them. Elon Musk is leading the retaliation among a branch of the super-rich and on the ground level, more and more ordinary people are becoming aware that something dangerous has happened and we’re heading in a frightening direction.
I wonder if the WEF cult has reached the peak of its influence. Like any organisation setting an agenda from the shadows, once light falls on it, it starts to burn.
Most reports I have heard this week have been negative, indicating that the WEF has become a parody of itself. Even Katy Balls in the Speccie asks what self-respecting politician would wish to be seen in Davos. (Kemi Badenoch, apparently – why, why, why?)
The private jets, the whores, the conspicuous consumption, the hypocrisy, the climate hysteria from Al Gore… who wouldn’t want to distance themselves from such a cesspit?
Larry Rat Fink
Good riddance, Jacinda! Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, GOODBYE!
NZ will be a kinder, better, safer place if this psychopath is never allowed to come near any government body ever again.