Jacinda Ardern turns 40: How New Zealand’s PM won over the world in her first term

Since she was elected as the 40th prime minister of New Zealand in 2017, at the time becoming the youngest national leader in the world, Jacinda Ardern has guided the country through crises including a huge deadly volcanic eruption, the worst terrorist attack in New Zealand’s history and a global pandemic.

Beyond those events which have made international headlines, domestically Ardern’s Labour Party has passed legislation aimed at improving the health, wealth and wellbeing of the country.

As she turns 40 on Sunday, Ardern’s approval ratings are among the highest she’s ever had – new polling out today shows her party on a record 60.9 per cent, while her personal approval rating hit 63 per cent at the peak of the coronavirus crisis.

With less than two months to go until that popularity is tested at the polls in a general election, we take a look back at the key achievements of Ardern’s first term.

In June, New Zealand declared it had completely eliminated the coronavirus from its shores, a direct result of the PM’s “go hard, go early” approach which saw the country enter one of the strictest lockdowns in the world in mid-March. “We are confident we have eliminated transmission of the virus in New Zealand for now, but elimination is not a point in time, it is a sustained effort,” Ardern said at the time.

Michelle Duff, author of Jacinda Ardern: The Story Behind an Extraordinary Leader, tells The Independent that healthcare and public wellbeing have been key priorities for the prime minister, long before the pandemic.

In May 2019, the prime minister made headlines for what she described as the world’s first “wellness budget”, with close to half a billion New Zealand dollars being set aside for new frontline mental health workers stationed in doctor’s surgeries and Indigenous clinics, to help the 325,000 people with “mild to moderate” mental health problems in the country.

In January, just before the pandemic hit, the government announced the NZ$12bn (£6.24bn) upgrade programme, pushing much-needed funds into renovating hospitals across the country. And during Ardern’s time in office, just over 2,000 doctors and nurses have been hired. She also lowered the cost of doctor’s visits in 2018 for the most vulnerable in the country, including low earners and elderly.

In June, the New Zealand government was praised worldwide for announcing it was providing free period products across schools in the country. “Menstruation is a fact of life for half the population and access to these products is a necessity, not a luxury,” the PM said.

“Ever since she was a teenager, when she led a campaign for girls to be allowed to wear trousers to school, Ardern has had a strong sense of social justice,” Duff says. “She brings a strong feminist sensibility to many of her government’s policies.”

The deaths of 51 people at attacks in two Christchurch mosques in March 2019 represented the country’s worst-ever peacetime mass shooting. In stark contrast to the official response to mass shootings in the US, Ardern announced a ban on military-style semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles within just six days of the attacks. On 15 March, our history changed forever. Now, our laws will too,” she said.

Gun laws have continued to be tightened since, with the creation last month of a new registry for licensed firearms.

Throughout her term, Ardern’s government added 1,825 new officers to frontline policing. And in 2018, NZ$1.4bn was set aside for the safe network programme, an initiative to improve New Zealand’s most dangerous state highways and local roads which claim almost 400 lives a year.

One of the first pieces of legislation Ardern passed was the Child Poverty Reduction Act in 2018. The aim was to help the one in five children who live in poverty in the country through the NZ$5.5bn families package. The first initiative released from this was the best start scheme, giving children NZ$60 every week for the first year of their life, continuing until the child is three for low-income families.

In 2019, the government introduced a two-year initiative delivering free school lunches to school children from lower-income families.

The minimum wage was increased to NZ$18.90 per hour from NZ$15.25. And before the pandemic, unemployment in New Zealand was at its lowest rate in 11 years. Post-pandemic, Ardern stated that the government would take a 20 per cent pay cut in “solidarity” with the nation as unemployment soared.

In June 2018, Ardern became only the second world leader ever to give birth – and subsequently take maternity leave – while in office, when she welcomed daughter Neve Te Aroha Ardern Gayford with her fiance, Clarke Gayford. “I’m just pregnant, not incapacitated,” she said at the time. The prime minister then made history when she attended the UN General Assembly with a three-month-old Neve.

In 2019, she increased parental leave from 18 to 22 weeks, and in June this year it was increased again to 26, with Ardern claiming it was a “no-brainer”. The average paid leave for parents is 18 weeks in OECD countries, including the UK.

In March 2020, the prime minister passed the Abortion Legislation Bill, meaning it was now legal for women to get an abortion up to 20 weeks into pregnancy. It was a move heavily criticised by pro-life campaigners and even those within the government, including the deputy prime minister Winston Peters. At the time, Ardern said, “I know this is a heated debate, I know this is one people feel strongly about, but we have not modernised our legislation since 1970.”

The government has planted 140 million trees during Ardern’s first term. In June 2018, plastic microbeads were banned, followed by a ban on single-use plastic bags in July 2019. Further restrictions on plastic packaging have been promised.

In April 2018, Ardern’s government said no new offshore oil exploration permits would be issued as the county looks to a “carbon-neutral future”. And in 2019, Ardern announced a plan to make that future a reality by 2050.

Speaking ahead of the prime minister’s 40th birthday, Duff says it was “difficult not to be impressed” by what Ardern has already achieved.

“She precipitated a change of government, is the second world leader to have a baby while in office, and has now presided over an incredibly effective pandemic response while the rest of us are just trying to get to work without cornflakes on our shirts,” she says.