Jacinda Ardern made a dame in King’s Birthday Honours

The former NZ PM, who has said NZ would become a republic in her lifetime, says she was in two minds about accepting the honour.

Jacinda Ardern poses at her desk for the last time as NZ Prime Ministe. Picture: Getty Images.

Jacinda Ardern, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand and an avowed republican, has been made a Dame in the country’s King’s Birthday Honours, the only woman to be named Dame Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit on this year’s list.

Ms Ardern, who stunned NZ when she resigned suddenly in January after nearly six years in the top job, said she was “incredibly humbled” by the honour for services to the state, despite having said she believed NZ would become a republic in her lifetime.

However, she told NZ media she had been in two minds about accepting the honour, because she felt her achievements were due in part to the work of her team.

“I was in two minds about accepting this acknowledgment. So many of the things I am being recognised for were things that were a collective experience, that all New Zealand were a part of, and that I never felt came down to one single individual,” she said in a statement.

The former PM, who rose to global prominence through her empathetic leadership of NZ through the Christchurch mosque terrorist attacks and Whakaari/White Island tragedy, but who turned NZ into a hermit state during Covid, said she was accepting the honour on behalf of family and colleagues who had supported her.

“Over the years of being involved in the honours process, there have been a number of people that I’ve come across who have felt the same way, who I have convinced to take recognition,” she said.

“So for me this is about my family, my colleagues and all those who supported me to do that incredibly rewarding job.”

Ms Ardern has stayed out of the media limelight since resigning as prime minister, allowing her successor Chris Hipkins clear air as he dismantled many of her pet projects. She told NZ TV she no longer “feels quite the same stress” as she did as PM, and was doing “everyday things” with her family.

Since resigning, Ms Ardern has been appointed a trustee of the Prince of Wales’ environment award, the Earthshot Prize, and is continuing her work with the Christchurch Call to eliminate extremist and terrorist content from the internet. She will leave NZ to study at Harvard University later this year.

“I’ll probably spend the rest of my life trying to find ways to be useful to the place that I call home,” she said.