NZ election: enter the era of Jacindamania

New Zealand PM-elect Jacinda Ardern in Wellington. Picture: Mark Mitchell

Nobody expected this, and now everyone is asking: what can we expect from this startling new era of Jacindamania?

To describe Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern — as of yesterday New Zealand’s Prime Minister-­designate — as an unknown quantity isn’t an exaggeration: she has been leader of the Labour Party for just 81 days.

She is 37 years old, making her one of the youngest elected leaders in the world. (She was born in the 1980s, and if that doesn’t make you feel old, nothing will.)

The decision by kingmaker Winston Peters to make her queen — and to announce the decision on television — marks the end of close to a decade of conservative rule.

By her own admission, Ardern is a progressive, a republican, and a feminist. Critics say it adds up to somebody very far to the left, and certainly the contrast with her predecessor Bill English — a middle-aged, grey-haired man, of the right — couldn’t be more stark.

Ardern was raised in a Mormon household but quit the church over its opposition to homosexuality. She is not married and has no children. She lives with her partner, TV presenter Clarke Gayford. They have a cat.

She is New Zealand’s third ­female prime minister, and while some remain interested in gender, there is vastly more interest in how she will govern. Ardern is dyed-in-the-wool Labour: she joined the party at the age of 17, and carries some of the same policies she championed as a youngster into parliament: she’s for free tertiary education and has ­declared climate change “the nuclear-free movement of my generation”.

One of her first policies — after being convinced to take the Labour leadership from her lacklustre predecessor Andrew Little — was to set a target of having net zero carbon emissions by 2050. She voted for same-sex marriage when that issue came before the New Zealand parliament in 2013.

Such policies are hugely popular with the left, and especially the young left. Ardern’s campaign was focused like a heat-seeking missile on gathering them up behind her, especially those who had drifted to the Greens, or given up voting altogether.

She visited tertiary institutions, encouraging the young and disenfranchised, most of whom have only ever experienced New Zealand politics as a conservative zone, to sign up and have their say.

Key promises aimed at youth include: three free years of education post-high school; the ­introduction of new student allowances; a plan for more public transport, in the form of a light rail from Auckland airport to the CBD; and a new tax on fuel will pay for it. It worked: the polls suggest Ardern clawed votes back from the New Zealand Greens, and students.

Ardern learned her politics at the knee of Helen Clark: she describes the former Labour leader as a mentor. She was Young ­Labour at university, and she spent time working in London, for one Tony Blair.

New Zealand media is reporting that Ardern discovered she was to be PM when Peters announced it on TV, which is perhaps better than hearing about it on Twitter. She immediately released a statement, saying she would form “a Labour-led progressive government”.

Ardern has been described as inexperienced and untested, but she has almost a decade of parliamentary experience, having been elected in 2008. True, she was elected to the leadership seven weeks before the election was called by a party desperate for razzle-dazzle — anyone, or anything, to try to get a little traction — but she provides that, and more.

Women’s magazines leapt at the opportunity to profile her, and the public liked what they saw. Ardern proved a natural on the commercial radio carousel, joshing along with popular hosts, and not taking herself too seriously.

Her ascension is historic: it is the first time a party has assumed power without having won a majority of the vote, but if she needs advice, that is something the US and Australia know a bit about.