We broke our Prime Minister – New Zealand Civil Society is the loser this day

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
75
2988

We broke our Prime Minister

The exhaustion increasingly etched on her face from dealing with the most challenging times outside war plus the toxic vilification of her has worn her down as we ride rudderless as a political movement on an ocean of anxiety.

We were lucky to have her, she brought out NZs best & sadly our worst.

The radioactive bile that has been vomited up on her has been a shameful low in public debate.

There were many legitimate reasons to disagree with the Prime Minister, this blog did so on many occasions, but there is a difference between reasonable difference and that hate speech she and her family have been buried under.

Civil Society is the loser this day.

We are all a lesser people this week.

What a terribly sad goodbye.

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We broke our Prime Minister.

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75 COMMENTS

  1. Im not worried about jacinda, she’s only 42, she’s rich and will get given amazing job offers.

    I am truly worried, no terrified about the poor and working class of this country who she is supposed to represent and care about , who were in crisis when she was elected and whose lives have only gotten worse in the last five years and will get extraordinarily worse under a national/act govt.

    Labour doesn’t care about us and has lost the glossy leader who tricked us into thinking they did now they’ll make some second rate Goff like Hipkins the leader and do sfa until they are voted out on election day.

    Unless…. They put Kiri or Michael in and they hit the ground running on popular policies Ardern was too conservative to do like a cgt, decriminalizing weed, dental etc

    But they won’t. They’ll elect a robot who won’t announce anything or do anything interesting to excite people.

    • If you’re terrified about what’s to come you should be. The devil you know was no devil, what’s to come , Nact, is the apocalypse.

    • Dirty politics and the ‘Goodfellows’, have feral, nutty bedfellows.

      The Karens, the Sherriffs, The Tamakis, the FARC’s, the conspiracy theorists, the racists, Groundswell, headswell, the misogynists, ramraiders, motel-dwellers, the death-threateners, Christian Right and arrogant pricks like David Seymour …

      I’d walk away too if this bunch of ne’er do wells were attacking me every platform and venue I went to. It’s bad enough commenting

  4. New Zealand will be blessed again when Chris Luxon becomes Prime Minister, who is a good Christian man. He’ll undo the damage done by Jacinda who is under the control of Satan!

  5. It was always going to happen, people on here have been predicting her departure before the 2023 election for quite some time. It was foretold, it happened, now prepare for what happens next, you will not like it.

  6. Totally agree with you Martyn. It is indeed a sad commentary on NZ society that even after we have been guided so well through the extraordinary events of the last 5+ years, and offered a new style of leadership, that political partisanship drives some to voice such vitriol as has been evident today.

    • It’s NZ a better or worse place to when she arrived compared to when left, by most statistical measure it is worse off. That’s probably why she stopped measuring in her first term.

      The All Blacks have a motto “leave the jersey in a better place to which you received it” The public distrust of politicians, the media, health experts and the police has only grown under her stewardship. She needs to wear that.

      I’m still actually confused on why she entered politics (she says for child poverty, but that has worsened under her watch, so that’s not believable).

      Was it power? Was it fame? Money? Ideology?

      • I would not agree that ‘most statistical measures’ say we are worse off. A number of important changes are now in place that, unless nat/act reverse them, will improve the lot of ALL NZ’s, not just the choosen few.

      • what statistical measures? I’m way ahead of where I was in 2017. One thing this Labour government has highlighted to me is the number of whingers and moaners there are on the right. What a bunch of self entitled muppets.

  7. I often agree with you Martyn but this piece is “over the top!” Civil society may well be a winner considering how much it deteriorated under Ardern’s primeministership.

    • Trevor lets blame Jacinda Ardern for all the ills not only in NZ but in the world and of course the weather. There there does that make you feel better

  11. I can only say: Thank you, Jacinda!

    My guess is the convincing majority in ’20 was a mixed blessing: it set her up to never be able to live up to the gigantic range of expectations it created.

    At the time, she had my vote and to be honest, it was the first time in my life that I was crystal clear as to who to vote for. I’ve never regretted it.
    Many mistakes, much good stuff.
    I wonder…. we don’t know what we had till it’s gone?
    Not holding my breath for the next (nact) lot. It scares me rather.

      • Richard+Christie Respect for fact? Wrong fact like saying that the IPCA would cover the politicians’ antics down at Parliament ? Fact that numerous voices keep pleading to keep the Commissioner for Vulnerable Children ?

  13. Completely over the top.
    Despite everything she’s done she’s never faced the kind of vitriol that Muller, for example, faced. The campaign of hate that ended with his breakdown and resignation – and he wasn’t even PM or in a position of genuine power.

    • ” she’s never faced the kind of vitriol that Muller, for example, faced ”

      Oh David think back to Helen Clark who suffered from intense , evil , derogatory nastiness which was promoted and published by the NZ Herald who you used to write opinion pieces for. Remember David back in the good old days.

      She never resigned because she had the cut of your gib and your editors and associates.

      But you soon lost your voice when the worst excess’s of the previous National government were laid bare.

      But it was all a left wing conspiracy eh George.

    • Oh for goodness sake the National party broke Muller, all the National MPs who left in disgust because “ pick me “ hadn’t been picked. Judith Collins helped in his sad state of affairs, some would call it dirty politics . It was bitching behind the scenes and with today’s announcement sadly nothing has changed .for all her spouted vitriol there we have Judith Collins once again. It makes one wonder what she has on the National party to make Luxon have to promote her to number 10 . If nothing else Luxon just proved all is not well in “Camelot “

  14. So there may be two union candidates: Former leader Andrew Little (Engineers’ Union), and Michael Wood (Bank & Insurance).

    Would either actually change any policies?

    I seem to recall that when Little was leader, Labour policy was to bring back the Industrial Awards System. That would be one decent victory for working people.

    The question is whether the Bernie Bros. will still have nobody to vote for, and if the new leader can win back a few Trumpers who have abandoned Labour for Winston.

    The election rules are also crazy. The members may not get to vote? And then if they do, it can easily be overruled by the Parliamentary Party?

    Obviously someone like Jeremy Corbyn must never be allowed to win.

    • Is she still superb? NZ is heading for a crisis she can’t handle. She knows that well rehearsed frowns and nice wordy announcements will not fix the economical clusterfuck we are about to face. It’s too much for her.

  16. A sign of a broken society is the level of mental health issues and what is done to deal with them.
    In that sense we have not done well.

    That said, a comment on one site is “Adern is a nasty person. She has all but destroyed New Zealand.” Now is that perspective down to mental health issues or other simple realities about the person’s intellect and grip on reality?

  17. ” There were mistakes, her caution and refusal to take on the self serving public service is one of them ”

    Bomber I never met Jacinda Adern so I have never made derogatory comments about her on a personal level. But as a New Zealander I have criticised her many times on this site and her colleagues for promising transformation but not delivering.

    I agree she stepped up with the crises presented to her but that is the job she put herself forward for but sadly that is where her leadership ended. When she needed to take action on the domestic front she did not and ignored so many highly tax payer funded working groups that presented her and her colleagues with measures they could take to give us what you and many others keep calling for ” regulated capitalism. ”

    The massive majority gifted to reward her and her colleagues in 2020 , an unprecedented majority not seen since 1935 and 1951 was an even more impressive feat under MMP and no Winston and Shane show to put the handbrake on they could have achieved regulated capitalism and gone to the country on a new economic platform and begin by changing the narrative. That would have taken bold leadership and courage and empathy something Adern seemed to possess.

    For the first time since 1984 there was a glimmer of hope that this young woman who endeared herself to the electorate with her compassion and humanity had the mana to really make the change so many desperately wanted and needed.

    But it was not meant to be.

    I acknowledge her service and her early moves on protecting us from the ravages of COVID.

    I am more sad of what could have been and the looming threat to our most vulnerable people who she solicited votes from then walked away from them on so many occasions and for the last time on February 7th.

    LINO and its current managerial woke membership is still the major problem standing in the way of providing a real serious alternative to the Nasty NACT and LINOs adherence to neo liberal atrocities which continue unabated and with more venom after October 14th.

        • Tedheath. Wrong. Many cannot afford to buy decent food for their children let alone for themselves, and even Granny knows that a good cup of tea is better for your brain, liver, budget, and the economy of far-flung places where the wind is in the palm trees, not in your lonely antipodean colon.

        • The Kraut Went Wild. No offence meant, but he’s hardly sanctimonious, just ignorant, and not even a prick, just a bit of a splutter, like that fellow Davis, the one who called a politician vanilla and has dreadful grammar for a school teacher. Saw him today saying “Us men, “ instead of “ We men”, and I almost spilled my tea.

    • lets try this for size, ted yer a drunken fuckin alky who gets behind a keyboard and pukes bile all over it…that sums up tha situation.

  20. ” Jacinda Ardern’s shock resignation announcement today has left a lot of us with a lot of complicated feelings. In my case, while I’ve been highly critical of Ardern’s government, I’m still sorry to see her go. We’ve had far too many terrible things happen during her term as Prime Minister – Christchurch, Covid – and on each occasion she rose to the challenge and tried to bring out the best in us. What damns her is her broken promises and lack of ambition, on climate change – which she promised to treat as “my generation’s nuclear free moment” – and on equality. Her unpardonable strategic silence on cannabis legalisation. The way she has simply squandered the absolute majority she won with technocratic tinkering, rather than bedding in real change. And of course her great betrayal on covid, where (having caught it herself) she just… gave up, and let it sweep the country (and is still letting it sweep the country). As a Prime Minister she has been amazing, and an amazing disappointment, promising change, and delivering so little of it.

    And on the gripping hand: I cannot blame or fault anyone for recognising that they don’t have it in them anymore, that there are things more important than politics, and for getting out of the job before it ruins them.

    If anyone is looking for a positive side, there’s this: Ardern ruled out a capital gains tax “under my leadership”. Well, she’s gone, and so a capital gains tax is back on the table. The question is, will Labour seize the opportunity, and take the popular step of taxing the rich on their unearned wealth? Or will they chickenshit out again to protect their own house-hoards? And if they do the latter, why should anybody bother voting for them?

    http://norightturn.blogspot.com/

  22. Saved 25,000 kiwis from death by covid.
    Increased minimum wage by 35%
    Cut immigration to cut unemployment.
    But lets not forget she was bad for business cause Labour creating the boomingest economy in 50 years is bad for business.

    How long til we see the placards “Bring Bac Jac! “

  25. I don’t think we broke PM Jacinda, I think it was the intransigence of the troughers and dolts in leading positions in government that had become ‘money for old rope’. Unfortunately it’s so old that its frayed and if used to hang them would break and release them from the end they so richly deserve. I have obviously little respect for these grifters and to save her good standing in the world she needed to leave, with the ability to continue on a career in which her past success will still shine bright. Stay on and only tarnish would be seen.

  26. As someone commented elsewhere

    “My take is she inherited the whole stupid central bank/central planning machine with it’s impossible-to-get-rid-of monetary policy that dominates everything, and all she could do is fiddle at the margins of that.

    I wonder if she will ever realise she didn’t matter all that much?”

    I think she did and if she rocked the paradigm too much she’d be in their sights?

    I wonder how much Luxon realises it too. I’m assuming he will play along and be a nice lap dog.

    Capitalism will eat itself.

  27. You might be right about the parliamentary lawn know-nothings. It took it out of me, my four anti-covid sibs. But rationally, surely you lay aside anything that doesn’t make logical sense?

    I can now see the great good things she did beyond crisis management. She did what our short-term politics will allow. Where she was miseratingly short of what we needed.

    Can’t really blame her. Very trying years, and the short-termness will punish her more than me. Misery for me in old age, early death for her generation.

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