Latest news with #ADifferentKindofPower
The Spinoff
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending June 27
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books' stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin Random House, $60) The Spinoff's own Madeleine Chapman reviewed Ardern's memoir – here's a snippet: 'Whether or not Ardern wrote this book herself (there is an 'editor' profusely thanked in the acknowledgements) is by the by. It is the story that she wanted to tell, or at least the parts of it she wanted to tell. Ardern ends her book by referring to herself as a 'speechwriter'. And her speeches are what have defined her career, whether impromptu or nervously rehearsed. But they're also deliberately limiting in what they offer. As a memoirist, Ardern has taken the same approach – offering just enough while still holding her cards close to her chest. It's an impressive move from someone who will now continue to be able to live a very private life while being extremely famous and a successful memoirist.' 2 The Safe Keep by Yael van der Wouden (Penguin, $26) A stunning debut novel set in the Netherlands of the 1960s. Beautifully written, surprising, and hopeful even while it offers insights into traumatic episodes in history. 3 Papatūānuku: A Collection of Writings by Indigenous Wāhine by multiple contributors (Awa Wāhine, $30) The latest, beautiful publication from indie indigenous publisher Awa Wāhine. Here's the blurb: 'A collection of writings by Indigenous wāhine is a powerful anthology of writing by Māori and Pacific women, offering a fresh, raw, and deeply personal tribute to Papatūānuku, the Earth Mother. Through these stories, poems, and reflections, the contributors explore the sacred connections between land, identity, and Atua Wāhine (Māori goddesses), bringing ancient wisdom into the present moment.' 4 James by Percival Everett (Picador, $38) One of the great novels of the decade is this Pulitzer Prize-winning retelling of Huckleberry Finn. Here's the blurb: 'When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and with the electrifying humour and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.' 5 Butter by Asako Yuzuki (4th Estate, $35) The hugely successful true crime novel that has stayed in the bestseller charts for over a year now. Way back in 2024 Josh Weeks reviewed Butter in The Guardian: 'Based on the real-life case of the 'Konkatsu Killer', in which a con woman and talented home cook called Kanae Kijima was convicted of poisoning three of her male lovers, Butter uses its sordid source material to interrogate the impossible beauty standards to which Japanese women are held.' 6 Eurotrash by Christian Kracht (Serpents Tail, $30) A black comedy about a mother and a son and a roadtrip. 'Eurotrash is a knowing book,' writes Marcel Theroux, 'with excursions into German history and allusions to Shakespeare, myth and pop culture. Part of its charm is the voice of its narrator, a self-aware snob-insider who is anatomising the avarice and insecurity of the privileged class he was born into.' 7 There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak (Penguin, $26) A moving novel about the ways water connects people, place and time. 8 Nesting by Roisin O'Donnell (Simon & Schuster, $40) Another 'unforgettable voice in Irish fiction'. Here's the blurb: 'On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change her life. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe. It was meant to be an escape. But with dwindling savings, no job, and her family across the sea, Ciara finds herself adrift, facing a broken housing system and the voice of her own demons. As summer passes and winter closes in, she must navigate raising her children in a hotel room, searching for a new home and dealing with her husband Ryan's relentless campaign to get her to come back. Because leaving is one thing, but staying away is another.' 9 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) A magnificent new novel from one of New Zealand's great fiction writers. Here's a snip from The Spinoff's books editor Claire Mabey's review: 'Fading seaside towns are microcosms for faded histories and dreams – and the UK's coastline is littered with them. The layered architecture of eras gone by affects a kind of haunting; the bright surfaces and ice cream shops pasted on top peddle dreams of beachside holidays often, in reality, rudely spiked by hyper-aggressive, Hitchcockian seagulls. Pastel-coated shopfronts and dusty vintage stores soften the detection of darker underbellies and thinly disguise the failures of capitalism to inject the buoyancy required to keep the nostalgia at bay.' 10 The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb (Simon & Schuster, $40) An epic new novel from the superstar that is Wally Lamb. WELLINGTON 1 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin Random House, $60) 2 A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan (Allen and Unwin NZ, $37) Narrated by a 10-year-old girl, this immersive summer holiday novel is awash with a sinister undertow. Read a review of A Beautiful Family on The Spinoff, right here. 3 If I Must Die by Refaat Alareer & Yousef Aljamal (OR Books, $59) Renowned poet and literature professor Refaat Alareer was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City alongside his brother, sister, and nephews in December 2023. He was just forty years old. This book is a collection of his essays and poetry about literature, politics, and family. 4 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) 5 The Safe Keep by Yael van der Wouden (Penguin, $26) 6 Bombard the Headquarters! by Linda Jarvin (Black Inc., $32) For anyone interested in China then and China now: 'In 1966, with the words 'Bombard the Headquarters!' Mao Zedong unleashed the full, violent force of a movement that he called the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. By the time he died ten years later, millions had perished, China's cultural heritage was in ruins, its economic state was perilous, its institutions of government were damaged and its society was bitterly divided. The shadow of these terrible years lies heavily over the twenty-first-century nation. The history of this period is so toxic that China's rulers have gone to great lengths to bury it – while a few brave men and women risk their freedom to uncover the truth. For as both they and the Party know, to grasp the history of the Cultural Revolution is to understand much about China today.' The award-winning novel about ageing, loss, and living. The Spinoff's Gabi Lardies and Claire Mabey loved it. A succinct guide to the conflict – essential reading. 9 James by Percival Everett (Picador, $38)
Scoop
3 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
A Different Kind Of Power Whitewashes Jacinda Ardern's Right-wing, Pro-Imperialist Government
Few books have received as much global publicity and fawning praise from the corporate media as A Different Kind of Power, the memoir by New Zealand's former Labour Party Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, published in June by Penguin Books. Ardern has been interviewed by major outlets in Britain, Australia, New Zealand and especially the United States. She has appeared on CNN, NPR, CBS, PBS, in the New York Times, on 'The Late Show' with Stephen Colbert, and in a mind-numbing 70-minute interview with Oprah Winfrey. The memoir's publication coincided with the release of an American-made documentary about Ardern, titled Prime Minister, produced by Magnolia Pictures, HBO and CNN. Significant resources, in other words, have been devoted to glorifying Ardern and her years as prime minister from 2017 to 2023. What is behind this phenomenon? Ardern is being elevated amid an historic crisis of the capitalist system, centred in the United States. The ruling class has brought the fascist Donald Trump back into power in order to escalate imperialist wars throughout the world while shredding democratic rights and eviscerating workers' living standards at home. The Democrats, and similar bourgeois parties internationally, are terrified that these developments are fuelling the leftward movement of workers and layers of the middle class, especially young people, who are increasingly opposed to capitalism and all of its political representatives. Advertisement - scroll to continue reading In this context, the embrace of Ardern is part of increasingly desperate efforts to reassure people that all is not lost, that the capitalist system can be saved if only it is given a kinder, more sympathetic face. As one of Ardern's interviewers, Katie Couric, said, 'In a time of extreme disillusionment, she reminds us that optimism isn't naïve, in fact it's necessary.' According to Penguin's publicity material, Ardern 'changed our assumptions about what a global leader can be' and her story provides 'a model for anyone who has ever doubted themselves or has aspired to lead with compassion, conviction, and courage.' A Different Kind of Power reads like a mediocre Young Adult novel sprinkled with 'self-help' platitudes, such as: 'The difference between what we are and what we could be is the greatest waste;' 'kindness has a power and strength that almost nothing else on this planet has;' 'if you are thin-skinned and sensitive, if criticism cuts you in two, that is not weakness; it's empathy;' and so on. It is structured as a story of feminist empowerment, designed to appeal to identity politics-obsessed upper-middle class layers. A clever, sensitive girl overcomes her self-doubt and enters politics; her earnestness and empathy result in her becoming prime minister and leading New Zealand through the trauma of the 2019 Christchurch terrorist attack and the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic, while striving to eliminate poverty. Ardern accomplished all this, readers are constantly reminded, while having a baby, becoming only the second world leader in history to give birth in office. This simplistic, feel-good narrative is based on numerous falsifications, distortions and glaring omissions. By any objective standard, Ardern led a pro-imperialist, right-wing government. In 2022 and 2023 the working class turned sharply against Labour amid collapsing living standards, attacks on immigrants, and a surge in COVID-19 hospitalisations and deaths after the government's switch to a policy of mass infection. Ardern's election promises in 2017 to end child poverty and homelessness, to build 100,000 'affordable' houses, and to bring back free tertiary education, were exposed as completely fraudulent. In October and November 2023, when Labour was still in power, it endorsed Israel's murderous bombardment of Gaza, and Chris Hipkins, Ardern's successor as prime minister, smeared opponents of the slaughter as antisemitic. Ardern resigned as prime minister at the start of 2023 to pursue a career in the United States, where she has become a celebrity in Democratic Party circles. She is a fellow at Harvard University and also heads the Field Fellowship, a political leadership training program that is part of the Center for American Progress, a major imperialist think tank in Washington DC. Ardern spoke during last year's Democratic National Convention in Chicago, in support of Kamala Harris's presidential campaign. She attempted to portray Harris as a symbol of 'hopefulness' and 'empathy.' Nothing exposes the cynical fraud of Ardern's 'compassionate' persona more than her embrace of the Biden-Harris administration as it carried out the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza, which is aimed at crushing opposition to imperialist control over the Middle East. There is no mention of this historic crime in her memoir. Ardern's early career Much of Ardern's book deals with her unremarkable, conservative upbringing, in a family with no connection whatsoever to the struggles of the working class. She was raised as a Mormon in the small rural towns of Murupara and Morrinsville. Her father, who she depicts as a role model, was a police officer. Despite leaving the Mormon Church in her twenties—which was necessary to advance her political career—Ardern praises this deeply reactionary institution as 'loving and kind, focused on service and charity.' The church has intimate connections to far-right politicians in the US, and was estimated in 2023 to have a net worth of $US265 billion, with huge investments in real estate and other business assets. Ardern began campaigning for the Labour Party in 1999 while still in high school and was quickly identified as a potential candidate. She worked in parliament during the early 2000s as an assistant to Labour government ministers including Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff and Prime Minister Helen Clark. Ardern states that the Clark government 'achieved a lot,' citing identity politics-related initiatives—including the legalisation of same-sex civil unions—and small increases to the minimum wage and welfare, which did nothing fundamental to address poverty and social inequality. The memoir falsely states that Labour 'opposed' the criminal US-led invasion of Iraq. In September 2003 the government sent 61 army personnel to join the imperialist occupation of Iraq. Ardern also doesn't tell readers that New Zealand troops participated in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. This had a dramatic impact on New Zealand politics, leading to the implosion of the pseudo-left Alliance party, Labour's coalition partner, after its MPs voted in favour of joining the war. As a minor imperialist power, New Zealand has consistently backed US wars throughout the world, in exchange for Washington's support for its own neo-colonial domination over parts of the Pacific region. For two decades, successive governments, including Ardern's, redeployed troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2006 Ardern moved to London. She writes casually that she 'got a job as a policy adviser in a unit of the Cabinet Office called the Better Regulation Executive,' that is, in the office of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Ardern says next to nothing about this period, when she worked for one of the chief war criminals responsible for the destruction of Iraq. In 2008, in response to the global financial crisis, businesses in New Zealand began making mass layoffs. The Clark government protected the profits of the banks and implemented austerity measures, provoking significant strikes, including by doctors and truck drivers. Labour lost the election that year, but Ardern entered parliament, becoming the youngest sitting MP at the age of 27, after being given a high placement on the party list. She was being groomed for a prominent role. The 2017 election: Ardern's coalition with the far-right NZ First After nine years in opposition, Labour remained deeply discredited in the eyes of workers, as a party of big business and imperialist war, just like the National Party-led government. Labour was on-track for a fourth consecutive election defeat when Ardern was catapulted into the leadership in 2017 in a desperate attempt to avoid a complete electoral wipeout. Ardern was heavily promoted by the media, which coined the term 'Jacindamania' (echoing the 'Obamamania' of 2008). Her election campaign was backed by the pseudo-left International Socialist Organisation and Socialist Aotearoa, which made baseless claims that Labour was turning to the left and presented Ardern's election pledges as good coin. Only the Socialist Equality Group warned that Ardern's rhetoric could not be trusted and that a Labour-led government would accelerate the assault on the working class, including immigrants, and strengthen New Zealand's alliance with US imperialism. The manufactured enthusiasm for Ardern had a limited effect, with Labour getting just under 37 percent of the votes on September 23—less than the National Party. Neither of the major parties was in a position to govern alone. Both spent weeks in negotiations with the right-wing nationalist New Zealand First Party, which ultimately chose to form a coalition government with Labour and the Greens. Ardern writes affectionately about NZ First, calling it a 'populist, centrist party' whose leader Winston Peters 'was a huge political personality—charismatic and blunt, with a reputation for being a maverick.' She adds that her grandmother 'definitely had a soft spot for him.' NZ First was founded in 1993 on an explicitly anti-immigrant platform. Peters was well-known for racist demonisation of Muslims, as well as Asian and Pacific island immigrants. Ardern writes that 'New Zealand First had a reputation for being harsh on migrant communities, and this was not a message I wanted to see reinforced through any kind of concession.' The Labour Party, however, repeatedly joined NZ First in scapegoating migrants, especially Chinese people, for overstretched public services and the housing crisis. The Ardern government imposed increasingly brutal anti-immigrant measures, in line with NZ First's demands. It froze the processing of thousands of residency applications; prevented visa-holders from returning to NZ during the pandemic; imposed income-based restrictions on new migrants; kicked unemployed migrants off welfare; and oversaw brutal 'dawn raids' to detain and deport so-called 'overstayers.' In 2022, after migrants protested against such policies, the state forced the shutdown of the popular Migrants NZ Facebook group. The days leading up to the 2017 election were dominated by a vicious anti-China campaign, led by pro-Washington academic Anne-Marie Brady and backed by NZ First, as well as the Labour-aligned Daily Blog. Without any evidence, Brady accused National Party MP Jian Yang of being a Chinese spy, while the Daily Blog railed against National's encouragement of close business ties with China. In her retelling of events, Ardern mentions none of this. She claims to have had no foreknowledge that Peters would form a coalition with Labour until he publicly announced his choice on October 19. Peters announced his decision with the warning that capitalism was being discredited and that it 'must regain its human face.' Ardern is silent about the most important, perhaps decisive, episode during the coalition talks, when US ambassador Scott Brown publicly made clear that Washington preferred a Labour-NZ First coalition government. In extraordinary statements to the media, Brown criticised the incumbent National Party government for being too soft on China and for failing to back President Trump's threats to annihilate North Korea. The Ardern government aligned New Zealand more closely with US warmongering. It declared Russia and China the main 'threats' to global stability, and supported a stronger US military presence in the Pacific. In 2022, Labour sent New Zealand troops to the UK to train Ukrainian conscripts for the US-NATO war against Russia. Despite NZ First getting just 7.2 percent of the votes, its leader Peters was made deputy prime minister and foreign minister, while NZ First deputy leader Ron Mark became the defence minister. The Greens also played a significant role, working closely with NZ First to produce a document justifying a significant increase in military spending. The 2019 Christchurch terror attack On March 15, 2019 the fascist Brenton Tarrant massacred 51 people and injured dozens more at two Christchurch mosques. It was the worst mass shooting in New Zealand's history and horrified the entire world. Many questions remain about how Tarrant was able to carry out the attack and why state agencies failed to act on numerous warnings about his activities and the dangers to the Muslim community. Ardern gives a superficial account focusing on her own response on March 15 and her meetings with the victims' families, which was celebrated by the corporate media internationally as evidence of her kindness and empathy. At one point she wonders whether Tarrant could have been stopped, but concludes that this was impossible: 'It had all happened so fast, everyone responding exactly as they should, and it still hadn't been enough.' In fact, Tarrant had been reported to police in Australia for making death threats on social media. In New Zealand, a member of the public warned police about anti-Muslim comments he overheard at the gun club where Tarrant was a member. Tarrant published numerous comments online about his intentions, more than a year before the attack. He had links with Australian fascists who were monitored by police and intelligence agencies, as well as far-right networks internationally. Despite all this, a royal commission of inquiry concluded that there was no way Tarrant's attack could have been prevented. The inquiry was a whitewash of the state agencies. It was held in secret and most of its evidence, including statements from police, security agencies and Tarrant himself, has not been made public. Emphasizing Tarrant's Australian nationality, Ardern writes: 'he'd moved to New Zealand—he chose us—because he knew that New Zealand openly welcomed people of all faiths. He wanted to destroy that. He wanted us to turn against one another. So, he came here, and he attacked our Muslim community.' This depiction of New Zealand as a society free from discrimination and prejudice is a fantasy. For decades, successive governments stoked anti-Muslim sentiment to justify New Zealand's participation in the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. NZ First leader Winston Peters—Ardern's deputy PM—infamously declared in a 2005 speech entitled 'The End of Tolerance' that the Muslim community had a 'militant underbelly… like the mythical Hydra, a serpent underbelly with multiple heads, capable of striking at any time and in any direction.' NZ First ramped up its anti-immigrant demagogy following the Christchurch attack, echoing some of Tarrant's statements. All of this was ignored in the media's adulation of Ardern. Ardern recounts how, in a phone call with President Trump after the March 15 attack, she absurdly asked him to 'show sympathy and love for all Muslim communities.' She does not mention that Trump was a major inspiration for Tarrant, whose manifesto hailed him as a 'symbol of white renewal.' Ardern's book does not contain a single reference to Trump's mass deportations and other fascist policies. The state censor made it illegal to possess or distribute Tarrant's manifesto, thereby suppressing public discussion of his fascist views and their similarity to those of Trump and far-right parties like NZ First. Ardern urged the media not to report on Tarrant's views and declared that she would never say his name. The Ardern government's main response to the Christchurch attack was to ban the military-style rifles used by Tarrant and to push for greater internet censorship. Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron established the Christchurch Call to Action, an initiative supported by numerous governments and tech and social media companies, she says, 'to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.' Its real aim was to provide additional tools to clamp down on political opposition and dissent, as governments throughout the world lurched towards dictatorship and imperialist war. It is not the far-right, but left-wing, socialist and anti-war publications, including the World Socialist Web Site, which are facing censorship by Google, X and Meta—all signatories to the Christchurch Call. Ardern and the COVID-19 pandemic In a 337-page book, Ardern devotes fewer than 30 pages to her government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a deeply dishonest account. Describing how the government decided to implement a lockdown of schools and workplaces in late March 2020, Ardern says she was guided by experts including her chief science advisor Juliet Gerrard and Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield. 'Every decision was hard,' she says. 'We moved as quickly and decisively as we could, knowing if we got it wrong, the virus could get away on us.' In fact, the decisive factor that triggered the lockdown was the ruling elite's fear of an uncontrollable movement in the working class. In parts of the United States and Europe thousands of workers had walked off the job to protest the state's refusal to stop the spread of COVID. They did so in defiance of the pro-capitalist unions. In New Zealand, tens of thousands of healthcare workers and others signed a petition demanding an immediate lockdown. This was organised independently of the union bureaucracy, which opposed school closures and downplayed the risks of COVID. The nationwide lockdown was successful: within a few weeks transmission of COVID-19 dropped to zero in New Zealand and daily life largely returned to normal, with the border closed and quarantine measures in place for returning residents. Because of this, Labour was re-elected in 2020 with 50 percent of the vote. Near the end of that year, while hundreds of thousands of people had died around the world, there were only 25 COVID deaths in New Zealand, 'and I knew the stories and circumstances of almost all of them,' Ardern says. The policies adopted in New Zealand, China, and to some extent Australia and other countries in South-East Asia, proved that COVID could be completely eliminated. Had the same strategy been implemented on a global scale, the pandemic would have ended in a few months. Such a strategy, however, was incompatible with the demands of the profit system. Ardern provides no explanation for her government's decision, in late 2021, to suddenly abandon its 'zero COVID' policy. She merely states that by October, amid an outbreak in Auckland, 'I increasingly believed that this time we would not stamp out Covid.' This belief was not backed by science. Against the advice of some of its own public health advisors, the government repeatedly relaxed the temporary lockdown in the largest city, allowing the highly infectious Delta variant to get out of control. The government was acting on the demands of the corporate media for an end to lockdowns and for New Zealand to follow the US and Europe in allowing COVID to spread. This plan—which placed profit ahead of the lives and health of workers—was implemented with the crucial support of the trade unions, which prevented any organised opposition to the dismantling of public health measures. From the beginning, in response to the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic, the Ardern government prioritised the interests of the corporate and financial elite. Like governments in the US and internationally, it transferred tens of billions of dollars to the rich. Property values and corporate and bank profits soared as businesses received bailouts, subsidies and tax concessions, and the Reserve Bank distributed billions more through quantitative easing measures. Ardern repeats the lies that the Omicron variant, which became dominant in 2022, was 'less lethal' than Delta and that, with vaccination, the population could 'adjust to our new normal: living with Covid.' Vaccines, while essential to minimise the effects of the coronavirus, do not prevent transmission and significant levels of severe illness. Commenting on the far-right, anti-vaccination protesters who camped on parliament's lawn in Wellington for three weeks in February 2022, Ardern states: 'It was a challenge the world over—people now couldn't agree on what was fact and what was fiction.' The truth is that her government had emboldened the extreme right by bowing to the demands to replace the elimination policy with a policy of mass infection. Ardern does not explain what 'living with COVID' actually meant. The catastrophic spread of COVID-19 in 2022 overwhelmed the country's grossly under-resourced public health system. By the end of July, New Zealand's total deaths from COVID had risen to 2,000, with more deaths per million on a weekly basis than any other country. To date, there have been more than 4,600 total COVID deaths, and thousands more people are suffering from debilitating Long COVID. Ardern's resignation A Different Kind of Power provides no real explanation for Ardern's resignation as prime minister on January 19, 2023, at the start of an election year. She refers lamely to 'sleepless nights' and feeling 'always stressed' and worn out. She claims her decision was unrelated to Labour's declining support, that 'polling at the time had just a few points between us and our opposition' and she believed Labour could still win. This is disingenuous. Of the 42 polls taken during 2022, listed on Wikipedia, three-quarters had the Labour Party behind the opposition National Party. Labour was presiding over soaring living costs, a worsening housing crisis, and the public health disaster fuelled by the out-of-control spread of COVID-19. Ardern's promises of a 'kinder' government had been discredited. To cite one further example: Ardern writes that in 2018 she launched a 'child poverty reduction law, which set targets to halve child poverty over the next ten years… to ensure that every New Zealand child could live in a home where they were safe and loved and had what they needed to thrive.' Ardern made herself the Minister for Child Poverty Reduction. Ardern neglects to inform her readers that from 2017 to 2023, the number of children living in material hardship—in families without access to basic necessities—increased by 6.4 percent from 135,000 to 143,700 (about 1 in 8 children). In the absence of a socialist alternative, disillusionment and anger with the Labour government's right-wing policies paved the way for the electoral victory of the conservative National Party and its extreme right-wing allies, the libertarian ACT Party and NZ First. The latter had failed to return to parliament in the 2020 election, but scraped back in in 2023 with just over 6 percent of the votes and was welcomed into the National-led coalition. ACT and NZ First, both extremely unpopular parties, are setting the agenda for the government, which is slashing taxes for the rich and presiding over soaring unemployment. About half a million people, one in 10, are relying on food banks to survive, and more than 100,000 people are severely housing deprived. With the Labour Party's support, the government intends to double spending on the military, to bolster New Zealand's alliance with US imperialism and join the insane preparations for world war. This will be funded with even deeper cuts to public healthcare and other vital services. Political lessons must be drawn from these experiences. The record of the Ardern government exposes the utterly right-wing character of the Labour Party and the political bankruptcy of all those who present Labour as a 'lesser evil,' including the Greens, the union apparatus, and pseudo-left organisations. This embrace of Ardern by the 'liberal' establishment in the US and internationally is a warning to the working class. As the capitalist crisis drives the imperialist powers towards war and fascism, Ardern's Field Fellowship program is training politicians in the US and Europe to use the rhetoric of 'kindness' and 'pragmatic idealism' to disguise their anti-working class, pro-imperialist agendas. Workers and young people cannot allow themselves to be duped by such phrase mongering. The only way to stop the descent into barbarism is for the working class to establish its complete political independence from all capitalist parties and to take up the fight for international socialism. This means joining the International Committee of the Fourth International and, in New Zealand, the Socialist Equality Group, which is fighting to build a section of the Trotskyist movement. By Tom Peters, Socialist Equality Group 22 June 2025
New Statesman
4 days ago
- Politics
- New Statesman
Jacinda Ardern's unexamined life
For 24 days in February 2022 protesters occupied the grounds of New Zealand's parliament. They were mimicking the trucker 'Freedom Convoy' that had ground Canada's capital city to a standstill earlier that year in defiance over Covid-19 vaccine mandates. In Wellington, protesters were outraged about New Zealand's own vaccine mandate, but there was also palpable rage over 'masks, the media, the UN, communism and the government', recalls Jacinda Ardern, who was prime minister at the time. 'They blocked off streets and erected makeshift toilets. A few ripped masks off the faces of commuters.' The protesters also had signs. 'I saw the American flags, the Trump flags, the swastikas,' writes Ardern, in her new memoir A Different Kind of Power. 'I saw my own image, with a Hitler moustache, a monocle and 'Dictator of the Year' emblazoned above my face. I saw the gallows, complete with a noose, which people said had been erected for me.' Such a scene would have been unimaginable five years earlier, when Ardern, as a newly installed leader of her Labour Party, rode a wave of 'Jacindamania' to become, at 37, the youngest female head of government in the world. She then bested her previous electoral performance in October 2020, months into the pandemic, by securing New Zealand's first majority government in 24 years. Yet the adulation and support that had once buoyed her premiership eventually curdled, so much so that by the time she resigned as prime minister, in January 2023, her net approval rating in the country had plummeted to just 15. As Ardern presents it, she was always a reluctant politician. Growing up in small towns on New Zealand's North Island, she was often surrounded by grinding poverty, particularly in Murupara, a small, remote forestry town the family moved to when Ardern's father, a police officer, was offered a job there. In an interview as a new MP, a reporter asked her when she first became political and, thinking of the town's economic struggles, Ardern responded, 'I became political because I lived in Murupara.' Despite this, Ardern describes her own childhood as happy. The Arderns were Mormons and, growing up, Jacinda was devoted to the religion. Going door-knocking for the church in her youth laid the foundation for political canvassing: 'I was already starting to prepare for a role I could never imagine holding.' It wasn't until she was in her twenties and had already started working as an adviser in the Labour Party that she began to interrogate her faith. She believed politics was the surest way to bring about positive change to people's lives, but she was increasingly confronted with tenets of her faith that ran counter to her liberal progressive 'values' – particularly regarding same-sex unions. At first, she would simply 'compartmentalise', mentally separating the clashing realities of her religion and her political beliefs, but as she got older and her career in politics progressed, she found that often difficult to do. She eventually left the church, a decision her family accepted gracefully. Ardern's rise in front-line politics might have been embarked upon reluctantly, but it was rapid. She had moved to London and was working as an adviser in Tony Blair's Cabinet Office when a former colleague called to convince her to return to New Zealand to run as an MP herself. She entered parliament the following year, but she was doubtful about her abilities. 'If there was any place that being a sensitive overthinker was going to trouble me, it would be here,' she thought at the time. Yet Ardern became determined to turn her weakness into a political strength – to make her lack of cynicism and her empathy the defining features of her politics. Her uncertainty over becoming prime minister in 2017 – after a surprise surge in support allowed her Labour Party to form a coalition government with the populist New Zealand First party and the Greens – had less to do with any nagging feelings of imposter syndrome and more to do with the fact that she was a few weeks pregnant. She was nervous about how the public would respond to a prime minister taking maternity leave, and her initial scans were clandestine affairs, carefully orchestrated and kept secret from even her security detail. A physician friend of a friend, who would meet with her in his clinic after hours, used the code name Kilgore Trout, a character from Kurt Vonnegut's novels, on all of her medical paperwork. When she finally did announce her pregnancy to the public, she was overwhelmed by support from New Zealanders and the world. While Ardern writes movingly about the private struggles of becoming a mother for the first time while also leading a government, publicly the perception was again one of strength: when Ardern brought three-month-old Neve to a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, she was celebrated as a trailblazer. Apart from the Covid pandemic, the defining event of Ardern's premiership was the Christchurch mosque shooting. On a Friday afternoon in March 2019, a 28-year-old man, recently arrived from Australia, walked into the Al Noor Mosque armed with several semi-automatic weapons and opened fire, livestreaming the attack on Facebook. He then made his way to Linwood Islamic Centre and once again started shooting. He was stopped by police while on his way to a third mosque. In total, 51 were killed, dozens more were injured. Ardern's response to the attack – which included swiftly banning semi-automatic guns and a public address in which she said of the victims: 'They are us. The person who has perpetuated this violence against us is not' – burnished her reputation at home and abroad as a compassionate leader. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe By the time the pandemic arrived on New Zealand's shores, the country still trusted Ardern. Her coalition government embraced a zero-Covid strategy, attempting to eradicate the virus completely – this meant an initial strict lockdown and the complete closure of the borders. That strategy worked at first: New Zealand had the lowest death toll out of all OECD countries, while schools remained largely open and hospitals weren't overwhelmed. Public support for Ardern was so strong that Labour won a landslide election in October 2020, allowing her to form a majority government. Yet by the time Covid's more slippery variants appeared, the strategy's effectiveness started to falter – longer and longer lockdowns were required, including one in Auckland that lasted 107 days. By the time the vaccine was rolled out in New Zealand, much of the solidarity in the country had evaporated. Hostility – toward restrictions, toward vaccines, and most of all, toward Ardern herself – took hold. Threats of violence and death against the prime minister and her family surged each year as the pandemic dragged on. Yet few of these details make it into Ardern's account, who writes vaguely about unspecified regrets. 'I still think about this time so often,' she writes of the protest outside parliament, 'not just the occupation, but the two years that preceded it, those long days and impossible choices.' While it's certainly likely that she has spent a long time dwelling on those regrets and impossible choices – overthinker that she is – she doesn't detail what mistakes she thinks she made or share what lessons she took away from this period. Bafflingly, Ardern devotes more pages to her relationship with Prince William over the years than she gives to an entire year of her premiership during the pandemic; 2021, with its variants and lockdowns and increasing radicalisation, is covered in just a page and a half. Why? Is she once again compartmentalising? This was clearly a monumental time for her; she resigned as prime minister in January 2023, before the end of her term. It's clear that Ardern is intent on forging on with her brand of compassionate leadership – it's the throughline of her book, the subject of a documentary about her time in office, Prime Minister, that was also released this year, as well as the focus of her fellowship at Harvard (she and her family have lived in Boston since mid 2023). But she doesn't reckon with the fact that, while more empathetic leadership is a worthy goal, far more people would prefer effective leadership. Ardern made a global name for herself by embodying the former and there's clearly potential for her to capitalise on that momentum outside New Zealand. When it comes to the latter, however, it's hard to argue that Ardern had much lasting success. Her government failed to make a dent in child poverty, despite it being an animating issue of her politics; many of the reforms she implemented while in office to tackle New Zealand's housing crisis were reversed by the next government. This also goes unmentioned in A Different Kind of Power. The most generous interpretation is that she – like many incumbents around the world who were punished at the ballot box once the pandemic waned – is still reckoning with the many 'hard, imperfect' decisions that may have triggered the backlash against her. A much less generous interpretation is that she simply doesn't see the value in publicly grappling with failure. Perhaps she is now satisfied with being a symbol of a type of politics, rather than continuing on with the hard graft of actual politics. A Different Kind of Power Jacinda Ardern Macmillan, 352pp, £25 Purchasing a book may earn the NS a commission from who support independent bookshops Related [See also:
The Spinoff
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending June 20
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books' stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin Random House, $60) Spot New Zealand's former prime minster on this week's New York Times bestseller list. 2 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) The un-put-downable alternate history that explores some of life's biggest questions, including what does it mean to have a soul? Can a human ever not have one? 3 Eurotrash by Christian Kracht (Serpents Tail, $30) Auckland really loves this hectic mother-son roadtrip novel. 4 James by Percival Everett (Picador, $38) Everett's biggest book yet is his stunning, funny and profound retelling of Huckleberry Finn. 5 Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum (Bloomsbury, $25) Cosy and charming and perfect for a long Matariki weekend. 6 The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Penguin, $26) This year's winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction. One of the most exquisite novels you'll read this year: it is moving, sexy and surprising. 7 Butter by Asako Yuzuki (4th Estate, $35) The smash hit novel based on a true crime story of a serial killer who lured her victims in with stunning food. 8 A Dim Prognosis by Ivor Popovich (Allen & Unwin, $38) An utterly gripping, energetic memoir from Dr Popovich. Revealing! See The Spinoff this weekend to read an excerpt from this brilliant book. 9 Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Random House, $38) Vuong's second novel. 10 King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby (Hachette, $38) A fiery crime novel. Here's the blurb: 'Roman Carruthers left the smoke and fire of his family's crematory business behind in his hometown of Jefferson Run, Virginia. He is enjoying a life of shallow excess as a financial adviser in Atlanta until he gets a call from his sister, Neveah, telling him their father is in a coma after a hit-and-run accident. When Roman goes home, he learns the accident may not be what it seems. His brother, Dante, is deeply in debt to dangerous, ruthless criminals. And Roman is willing to do anything to protect his family. Anything. A financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, Roman must use all his skills to try to save his family while dealing with a shadow that has haunted them all for twenty years: the disappearance of their mother when Roman and his siblings were teenagers. It's a mystery that Neveah, who has sacrificed so much of her life to hold her family together, is determined to solve once and for all. As fate and chance and heartache ignite their lives, the Carruthers family must pull together to survive or see their lives turn to ash. Because, as their father counselled them from birth, nothing lasts forever. Everything burns.' WELLINGTON 1 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin Random House, $60) 2 Towards Modernism: Walter Cook Collection at Te Papa by Justine Olsen (Te Papa Press, $75) This handsome new publication celebrates the Walter Cook Collection of Decorative Arts (held at Te Papa) and the ceramic, glass and metal objects therein. 3 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) 4 It's A Bit More Complicated Than That by Hannah Marshall (Allen and Unwin NZ, $25) A brilliant new YA novel from a huge new talent. Here's the blurb: 'Zelle and Callum used to be best friends, but they haven't spoken in three years: not since the tragedy that wrenched them apart, and Zelle moved away. But now Zelle is back, and their lives are about to get a whole lot more complicated. Zelle is in denial about her alcohol use that threatens to spiral out of control, and she's deeply annoyed at having to leave the city. Callum's future is thrown into jeopardy after both a disastrous uni interview and his budding romance turning sour. But they can't keep running from the past forever, and circumstances force them to examine their grief and guilt and find a way through.' 5 A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan (Allen and Unwin NZ, $37) 'Trevelyan's narrator is 10 years old. She's unnamed until the very end of the book (I won't reveal it here: best to find out for yourself). It's this naive perspective that makes A Beautiful Family both easy to read and impossible to put down. The narrator's innocence is pitted against several disturbing factors, all orbiting her summer in various shapes and shades, and it's that persistent dance of disturbances that creates the sustained and unrelenting tension in the novel.' Read more of Claire Mabey's review on The Spinoff, right here. 6 The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Penguin, $26) 7 Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) 'I don't want to say that Delirious is the pinnacle of what Damien can do because that would be like putting a curse on his future work. But I am going to say it's almost impossible for me to imagine how he could do better. I think this is a great book – Great with capital G.' Even before Delirious won this year's Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, Elizabeth Knox was rapturous about Wilkins' beautiful novel. 8 Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq (Scribe, $37) Shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize. 'In the twelve stories of Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, praised for their dry and gentle humour, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq's years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women's rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression. Written in a style at once witty, vivid, colloquial, moving and excoriating, it's in her characters – the sparky children, the audacious grandmothers, the buffoonish maulvis and thug brothers, the oft-hapless husbands, and the mothers above all, surviving their feelings at great cost – that Mushtaq emerges as an astonishing writer and observer of human nature, building disconcerting emotional heights out of a rich spoken style. Her opus has garnered both censure from conservative quarters as well as India's most prestigious literary awards; this is a collection sure to be read for years to come.' 9 James by Percival Everett (Picador, $38) 10 The Māori Millionaire by Te Kahukura Boynton (Penguin, $35) 'Te Kahukura Boynton is Māori Millionaire, and her debut book is here to help. Learn how to make money by clearing debt, saving for an emergency, finding work and increasing your salary, and even starting your own business and investing in shares and yourself. With tips on building better habits with your money and your life, Māori Millionaire is the positive mindset change you might be missing.' So goes the blurb.
Sky News AU
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
No amount of book sales can dispel Jacinda Ardern's 'odd passivity' that defines her fear-driven time at the top
Jacinda Ardern is back in the headlines, promoting her new memoir 'A Different Kind of Power' - a reflective account of leadership in turbulent times. But the warm glow of international admiration and her trademark poise can't obscure the enduring truth: her government, despite commanding a once-in-a-generation majority, will be remembered less for bold reform than for missed opportunities, and a puzzling reluctance to wield real power. Ms Ardern's personal brand was global and managerial: she was popular for her empathy and calm in crisis, not for bold leftist policy. In fact, many on the left viewed Labour's second term as a wasted mandate. Ms Ardern's second-term Labour government had enormous political capital - but a mix of centrist instincts, bureaucratic drag, Covid-era caution, and fear of losing swing voters led to a remarkably status quo style of governance. There was no structural tax reform, no wealth redistribution of scale, no transformative housing policy and little movement on climate beyond setting targets. Instead, Labour's second term was defined by incremental, technocratic reforms and a constant fear of middle-class backlash. The once-in-a-generation opportunity for sweeping reform was there - but not taken. In fact, it is hard to think of any modern Western government that made so little of its mandate - that is the enduring, even puzzling legacy of Jacinda Ardern. Ms Ardern won a second term with an outright majority. No longer hamstrung by coalition partners, her Labour government was free to enact any legislation it envisaged. Before her first victory in 2017, the left had languished in the wilderness for nine years, and now, after twelve years, and a legislative agenda stymied by the centrist New Zealand First, there was a once in a generation opportunity to enact an egalitarian vision of New Zealand society. But even before then, there were tensions, a sense of misfiring political machinery, something unaccountably underwhelming about Ms Ardern and her government. Unlike Australia, where, post Howard, governments frequently come and go, New Zealand governments tend to endure. Kiwis are so lackadaisical about politics that a government basically gets its first term as a kind of freebie - the last time New Zealand had a one-term government was 1975. And yet, the prevailing wisdom - largely forgotten or memory-holed now, is that were it not for Covid, Ms Ardern was, at best, a 50-50 proposition to win re-election in 2020. Why did her ambitious housing agenda of setting out to build 100,000 new homes fail so badly in the first term, and why didn't she attempt to renew the policy drive with an outright majority in the second? Why didn't she substantively alter tax and tackle wealth distribution when she controlled fiscal policy or do anything substantive or defining when a historic opportunity for sweeping change was at hand?Despite having the mandate, Ms Ardern was ideologically centrist in practice. Her style of leadership emphasised consensus, kindness, and incrementalism, not confrontation or radical reform. While rhetorically progressive, in execution her government often governed with caution. The issue here was that she was talking in progressive terms and with a progressive spirit, without actually dealing anything substantive, or any signature legislative achievements that would enthral progressives. Housing was the area where expectations were highest - and results most disappointing. Kiwibuild promised 100,000 homes but failed almost from the start, derailed by unrealistic targets, developer resistance, and planning bottlenecks. Labour could have used its majority to overhaul zoning, expand state housing, or confront inflated land values - but was spooked by the political risks of reducing house prices, which would hurt middle-class voters and existing homeowners and opted instead for modest bipartisan tweaks, leaving the Reserve Bank's stimulus to do the heavy lifting. House prices soared, inequality deepened, and the government stood still. Labour also had to contend with bureaucratic and implementation limits. New Zealand's state capacity is small. Even when the political will was there, implementation proved sluggish. The public service is highly risk-averse, and major reforms take years of consultation, design, and rollout. Labour's ministers often lacked deep experience or vision in their portfolios – Ms Ardern had a strong front-facing brand, but policy delivery was patchy. Why not soak the rich? Ms Ardern ruled out capital gains and wealth taxes early, even before the second term, and reaffirmed that stance despite Labour's majority. A Tax Working Group (2019) recommended a CGT, but Ms Ardern shut it down, saying she didn't believe in it and would never propose one "as long as I'm leader". Labour introduced a modest new top tax bracket, but that was about it. This stemmed from a fear of political backlash from swing voters, and an apparent lack of internal party consensus. The Labour caucus itself was ideologically diverse, with a significant bloc of MPs wary of alienating middle-class homeowners, farmers, or the business sector. The pandemic radically changed the fiscal landscape. The Covid recovery required tens of billions in emergency spending - business support, wage subsidies and health infrastructure. While Ms Ardern had public backing to spend during the emergency, longer-term structural reforms (like universal free dental, income support overhaul, or big housing expansion) were seen as fiscally risky once debt rose. Finance Minister Grant Robertson was fiscally conservative - he emphasised 'responsible' budgeting, even as bond markets remained accommodating. Again: Labour feared that sustained higher spending would spook centrist voters The outcome? A strange sense of hollowness and lack of propulsion of Ms Ardern's government. Compare this to politics across the Tasman - to the extent such a comparison can be made. Whether a supporter or critic of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, most would accept he has been productive and assertive legislatively. Ms Ardern won an outright majority for her second term under MMP - a historic anomaly - and could legislate without coalition partners for the first time under MMP. Mr Albanese won a first term with a modest majority in the House, but not in the Senate. But while Ardern had more raw legislative power, Mr Albanese arguably had a more structurally progressive parliament because of Greens and Teals Ardern sought to lead with moral clarity and an empathetic tone, but governed incrementally. In fact, she often governed as if she still needed former coalition partners NZ First or the Greens to pass laws - even when she didn't. Mr Albanese has done more with less, moving the needle on long-standing progressive goals, while Ms Ardern largely avoided using her majority to push structural reform. In terms of housing policy, Kiwibuild was a high-profile failure for Ms Ardern. She refused to tackle house prices directly, largely leaving the state out of direct housebuilding at sufficient scale. Mr Albanese introduced the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) in an attempt to fund social and affordable housing. He faced Senate pressure but ultimately compromised toward progressive ends. Ms Ardern had no such constraint - but chose the path of least resistance. On climate and energy, Ms Ardern passed a Zero Carbon Act (with National's support) and created a Climate Commission, but follow-through was slow, and emissions reductions largely failed to materialise in agriculture or transport. Mr Albanese enshrined an emissions reduction target into law and expanded renewables investment and grid modernisation. Ms Ardern won praise for symbolism, while Mr Albanese delivered more substantive policy shifts, especially given Australia's political environment on climate has traditionally been more wary than New Zealand's. As a demonstration of contrast, and bearing variances in politics in mind, the current Australian government, the closest proxy in terms of politics and society, and separated by only a year or two in terms of tenure, reinforces the odd passivity and diffidence that ultimately defined Ms Ardern's time at the top. No amount of book sales, or easing tensions with the passage of time, or retrospective fondness will ever really dispel that. Nicholas Sheppard is an accomplished journalist whose work has been featured in The Spectator, The NZ Herald and Politico. He is also a published literary author and public relations consultant
