Jacinda Ardern is being hailed as one of the world’s ‘most empathetic leaders’. Is that a myth?

One word kept coming up in the avalanche of praise for Jacinda Ardern this week. It goes to the heart of her greatest myth.

COMMENT

It’s probably time to move on from talking about Covid. I’m tired of it, you’re tired of it – we’re all over it.

But when Jacinda Ardern’s resignation as New Zealand Prime Minister sparked an outpouring of sympathy, I couldn’t help but cast my mind back 12 months or so.

Frequently hailed as one of the world’s most “empathetic” leaders, Ms Ardern earned praise from her supporters for being a shining light in modern progressive politics.

But she has critics as well, whose view of her tenure was irrevocably shaped by her response to the Covid pandemic.

That response was among the very strictest in the world. It involved shutting out her own country’s citizens, locking down those inside her borders, and harshly penalising those who declined to get vaccinated.

When she was dealing with the dissenters, Ms Ardern’s famous empathy went missing.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern led by example, receiving her own vaccinations, amid strict laws aimed at getting others to do likewise. Picture: Hannah Peters/Getty Images

Like many other leaders, New Zealand’s Prime Minister leant heavily on the assumption that the vaccines, once they arrived, would severely curtail community transmission.

Those working in industries which introduced vaccine mandates – around 40 per cent of New Zealanders – were told to comply or get lost.

At a time when heavy scrutiny should have been applied to never-before-seen laws, Ms Ardern stood firm on lockdowns that wreaked untold damage on people’s livelihoods, mental health and education.

When asked repeatedly about the negative aspects of vaccine mandates, she smiled and assured the population they were for the greater good. The implication being that a little discrimination was necessary in the name of keeping the vulnerable safe.

“Mandates meant we reached the levels of vaccination needed to prevent the devastating outbreaks seen across the world,” she said.

Ms Ardern — like several other world leaders — palmed off the idea of holding a referendum on mandates to gauge the public’s opinion on the matter.

The tough government stance saw protests erupt, pointing blame firmly at the country’s leader. Picture: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

Under New Zealand’s Code Red Covid-19 climate, Ms Ardern was accused of encouraging discrimination in the community by introducing My Vaccine Passes, which required citizens to prove their compliance before entering public venues.

These measures were also in place in other major Western nations including Australia, Canada and the US.

New Zealand had some of the harshest border and quarantine policies in the world, denying re-entry to thousands of its own citizens for months on end.

And up until April 2022, no traveller, not even citizens, could enter the country without providing proof of vaccination.

Where was the empathy for people locked out of their own country?

Even as other health measures were lifted, Ms Ardern stood firm on the necessity of vaccine mandates, though case numbers spiked anyway in the months following the jabs’ rollout.

And after a heavily publicised admission from Pfizer’s president of international developed markets revealing the company’s vaccine was not tested to stop transmission, Ms Ardern was adamant that her government’s mandates had “prevented a devastating outbreak” and offered no apology to those who lost their jobs as a result of its measures.

Health workers hand out Covid rapid antigen tests in Auckland, New Zealand. Picture: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images

Ms Ardern’s government dismissed concerns about mandates as “dog-whistling to anti-vaxxers” and ignored new evidence which should have reopened the debate over their effectiveness.

Elsewhere, the Prime Minister used her global platform to promote the importance of regulating online content, referring to freedom of speech online as a potential “weapon of war” in a September 2022 address to the UN General Assembly.

Her belief that world leaders should take on the responsibility of censoring “misinformation” online drew considerable backlash from those concerned that governments are too fallible to be trusted with such power.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has had an ‘empathetic’ image globally, but her own countrypeople may not agree. Picture: Marty Melville/AFP

Ms Ardern’s leadership style undoubtedly played well internationally, especially as a contrasting figure during the United States’ theatrical Donald Trump era, but the truth is she eventually haemorrhaged support in the camp that mattered most: New Zealanders.

That is why her years-long dominance of New Zealand politics was finally under genuine threat at this year’s election, with polls consistently showing the opposition National Party holding a comfortable lead.

Clearly, she has been required to lead through times of crisis, making an already tough job even tougher. Before Covid, she handled the mass shooting in Christchurch and White Island volcanic eruption ably. But it is equally clear that her Covid policies corroded her nation’s support for her.

That wasn’t the only factor. Her government’s domestic agenda, plagued by major unfulfilled promises in areas like housing and mental health, may not have drawn much notice overseas, but the failures were certainly felt back home.

Many of the plaudits Ms Ardern has received since her resignation announcement this week are deserved. It’s the focus on her “empathy” that rings so hollow. It’s the quality that went missing at the time of greatest stress, helping to degrade the New Zealand public’s trust in its institutions and, ultimately, its faith in her leadership.