A Different Kind of Power: A Memoir

by Jacinda Ardern

To the criers, worriers, and huggers

My whole short life I had grappled with the idea that I was never quite good enough. That at any moment I would be caught short, and that meant no matter what I was doing, I had no business doing it. That’s why I believed mine was a personality better suited to work behind the scenes. I was the worker who quietly and steadily got things done. I wasn’t tough enough to become an actual politician. My elbows weren’t sharp enough; my skin was too thin. I was idealistic and sensitive. Becoming a member of Parliament, I was certain, had been happenstance. But it turned out my fear of failing, of letting people down, was overshadowed by a grinding sense of responsibility. And so, as unlikely as it had once seemed, I became the deputy leader of my party, then leader, and now, possibly, the next prime minister.

Policing in New Zealand is also different from that in many countries. For one, officers don’t routinely carry guns. And while they have the power to make arrests, they use a U.K. principle known as policing by consent. The idea that police are essentially citizens in uniforms, and their authority stems from the approval and cooperation of the community. Although there have been examples of abuse of power in New Zealand’s police force, policing by consent is the benchmark, the model that officers are expected to follow, and it was what my dad believed in.

In 1984, a new government, led by the Labour Party leader, David Lange, was elected, and the minister of finance, Roger Douglas, introduced reforms that turned New Zealand’s economy—until then among the most regulated and protected in the world—into one of the most open. Parts of the economy that had been owned by the state, including forestry, were privatized and gutted in an approach that was dubbed Rogernomics.

I did, moving as quickly as my bare feet allowed on the painful gravel scattered over the driveway. When I reached the concrete sidewalk, I broke into a run. But I worried about my dad so much that I risked his annoyance and took the same route to return home. By now, the parking lot was empty. That night, when Dad came home, I asked him how he got out of the situation. I couldn’t imagine an exit other than one using force. I must have said something like this, because he furrowed his brow, his expression making it clear that he was disappointed in me. “Jacinda,” he said. “My words will always be the greatest tool I have.”

I thought about fairness, and the way circumstances can push a community into difficulty—and the way the people in that community still managed to hang on to their mana, their dignity. I thought about my parents—about my dad, doing his best to help more than he hurt, and about my mum, doing her best too. And I knew: The answer was Murupara. I became political because I lived in Murupara.

“Not until you learn how to use a gun carefully and properly,” Dad said, heading out into the night. Soon after that he taught me to use the rifle. He set up a target, showing me how to hold the gun against my shoulder and steady myself when it threw me back. No matter how many times I fired, each time it gave me a fright. But I kept at it, determined to learn. I did a lot of things in those days that I suppose would have made me a “tomboy.” I whizzed round the orchard on Dad’s old Honda motorbike, my mum shaking her head at my speed and warning my dad, “She’s not taking that out on the road, Ross.” One afternoon, I watched as Dad peered at the undercarriage of our large, secondhand riding lawn mower, which had broken down for the third time that year. I stood on the loose gravel at the edge of the big, corrugated-iron shed, certain Dad could fix it. He lay against the hot concrete floor of the shed, shifting uncomfortably, a look of consternation on his face. Dad extended one arm and asked me to pass him a wrench. I rushed over to the rusty toolbox as if I were on a timer. “Thanks,” he said. He kept his eyes on the bottom of the mower as he added, “You’re the closest thing I have to a son.”

I would be hospitalized and diagnosed with something called Kawasaki disease, a rare childhood illness that causes inflammation of the blood vessels. I would stay in that hospital bed a week, then spend several more getting my strength back.

learning New Zealand’s history didn’t change how I felt about my home country. In fact, it was in Mr. Fountain’s class, lesson by lesson, that I realized loving where you are from meant seeing all the wrongs that needed to be fixed and all the ways that it could be better.

being interested in politics and working in it were completely unrelated things. Politics was the kind of thing, I was sure, you would do if you could afford to have a hobby. It was a passion, not a profession.

I love Election Day. I love seeing the culmination of so many people’s hard work. I love seeing the people who come to work for the Electoral Commission this one time every three years, who take the role of supporting people to vote so seriously. I love seeing the election monitors sitting there with their rosettes on from all the different parties, volunteering their time just to make sure that everything’s running smoothly. I love knowing that people of all ages, from all over New Zealand, and from all walks of life will be doing one thing, all within a few hours of one another. I love seeing the little orange VOTE HERE signs everywhere on the corner of streets, next to schools and community centers, and town halls. I love seeing people stream toward these polling stations, the excitement of checking in with other party volunteers, all across the country, asking each other, How’s it looking? How’s the turnout? Is it a sunny day? Let’s hope the rain holds, because if it rains, it’s a disaster. And then you step into the little cardboard booth, pick up that bright orange pen, and make a tick mark. Behind that tick is so much work, so much at stake, but also so much hope. I love everything about Election Day, and for me it all started in New Plymouth. Not only my first campaign, but also my first vote.

in spite of all the confusing rules, and my fear of making a mistake, I loved it. It was a place where laws changed and problems were fixed. And not just on paper, but for people—like the ones I had met door knocking. Yes, politics had a hand in the poverty I had seen all those years ago in Murupara, but I felt sure Parliament was also one of the only places that could fix it. But that conviction also made it a chapter that was harder to close. An internship does not a career make, I reminded myself as I stuffed clothes into a suitcase. There were so few jobs in politics, and even then, what made me think I could do any of them?

“Well, I don’t understand why no one is asking…why.” This was the same question I’d been asking since I was a child, and that I would continue to ask for the rest of my life. What makes someone commit a crime, or an act of violence—even violence on a massive scale? If we know why, after all, maybe we can do something. And I really wanted to believe we could do something. The professor stared at me, a look of disbelief on his face. “You’re telling me that if I understood why this had happened, I would be okay with thousands of people dying?” “No! Obviously not.” That’s not what I was trying to say, not even close. The room had gone absolutely still. “No, I…” I fumbled for words I did not yet have. What I wanted to say was something like this: If we don’t understand how terrorists are made, how will we prevent the next attack, or the one after that? If we don’t ask the question why, are we just accepting this violence is inevitable? That we can’t help people feel safe again? And if that’s the case, what will the world become? Before I had time to formulate my response, the professor turned away from me and dismissed class. Students filed past me. I don’t know if they avoided eye contact with me; I was too busy avoiding eye contact with them. I gathered my books, quietly resolving never to speak in class again.

Jacinda's response to 9/11

The fact that anyone was working on this issue at all was due to a quirky tradition of the New Zealand parliamentary system called the biscuit tin, or as it was formally known, “Members’ Bills.” In New Zealand, any member of Parliament can write a piece of legislation, attach a number to it, then put it into a literal biscuit tin, painted white with blue flowers, that sits in the clerk’s office. When there’s an available slot, a number is pulled randomly from the tin, and that bill will be debated in the house to see if it has enough support to become law. One news outlet described the biscuit tin as “Lotto for laws,” and that’s how it feels. But groundbreaking changes have been made through the biscuit tin ballot—among them this bill, to decriminalize prostitution, drafted by Tim Barnett, a Labour MP for Christchurch Central. There was a strong human rights case to be made for decriminalization, and it’s hard to imagine anyone making that case more powerfully than Catherine Healy. Sex workers, she explained, could be extremely vulnerable—subject to assault, rape, and trafficking. If their work is illegal, they cannot go to the state for protection.

Being in politics for any amount of time, at any level, required being made of stern stuff. That was true whether a person was on the front lines, like the MPs, or back of house, behind the scenes, like me—little more than a cog in the machine. Pitfalls lay everywhere. Your opponents were constantly waiting for any missteps that could be exploited and amplified. Critics were relentless, and public sentiment felt as if it could shift so quickly and so easily. I was sure a person needed a spine of steel to survive in these halls, and so long as I was crying in a bathroom, I was sure I didn’t have that.

The event was successful, and besides they were likely just members of the opposition. It was exactly the kind of thing I should have expected. But my heart was racing; my tiredness mixed with adrenaline was now just becoming anger. As soon as the car pulled out, I stormed over to them. “I can’t believe the things you were saying,” I snapped. Don’t you know, I wanted to scream, how hard it is to do that job? And you just stand in your little scrum, hurling personal insults at people. What you are doing isn’t political disagreement. It’s nothing but ugly cheap shots. But I didn’t quite have those words at the ready. I had no impressive monologue. No speech for the ages. Instead, all that spilled off my lips was “You kiss your mothers with those mouths?” Steve Maharey, the minister of social development, happened to notice the confrontation, and he made his way over to intervene. As he arrived, one of the hecklers sneered, “Control your woman, Steve.” The guy’s voice dripped with contempt. I was about to bite back when Steve raised his hand. “Now, now,” Steve said, the way a teacher might in a classroom. He stepped between me and the guy, repeating himself. “Now, now. Let’s leave it.” Then he turned to me. Quietly but firmly, he said, “Come on, Jacinda. It’s time to go.”

“Nominations?” Silence fell over the room. A member of Grant’s team stood and yelled, “Grant Robertson!” I waited a beat for the seconder to stand. Instead, it was Grant who stood. “I don’t wish to be ranked,” Grant said. “Not until Jacinda Ardern has been.” He flashed me a smile, the kind that says, I know exactly what I just did, and then turned his eyes back to the front. I sat silently in the room, watching all the process hum around me. Someone nominated me, another seconded my name, and with that I was added to the list. Grant had just guaranteed that I would be ranked higher than him. That act could be the difference between him being in Parliament and not. It was, to this day, one of the most selfless, generous political acts I’ve ever seen.

Within a few weeks, I’d learn that the Labour Party didn’t have a candidate in my old hometown of Morrinsville. And no wonder. It was an unwinnable seat. They’d been hunting around to find someone who would put their name on the ballot in the place where I’d grown up. I was on the party list, almost guaranteed to be going to Parliament, but I was still able to run in a district. Almost everyone on the party list did. The answer was obvious: I would run the unwinnable race in my hometown.

What you didn’t do, though, was make a speech from your leader’s seat. When the speaker called on me to deliver my remarks, I’d stood exactly where I was—Phil’s chair—and began my speech, a faux pas so enormous that it was an invitation to be heckled. “Think you should be in charge?” shouted a minister from the National Party. “You’ll be just like your useless leader!” yelled another MP, managing to slam both me and Phil in a few short words. And then, suddenly, a bunch of people were shouting at me.

Trevor glanced away for a moment. Then he leaned in. In a quiet, clear voice, he said, “Promise me you won’t try to toughen up, Jacinda. You feel things because you have empathy, and because you care. The moment you change that is the moment you’ll stop being good at your job.” And with that, Trevor gave me a reassuring smile and strode off down the hall.

So how does an opposition MP begin to cut through that noise and find ways to talk to people? One option was through the media. I began to say yes to every interview I could: small rural newspapers, regional television, student radio. Yes, I’ll talk to you. Yes, I’ll give you half an hour. Yes, I will sit down with an eighteen-year-old who has just embarked on a journalism course. I saw this all as part of my job: to reach all voters, everywhere, in whatever media they happened to consume, no matter how small the circulation or viewership. But not all of the media opportunities that came my way were small.

It was around then that I was sitting at my desk when my executive assistant came in. Clare-Louise had been a dedicated volunteer for me in Auckland Central, and I’d since hired her. Clare-Louise was younger than me, but had a nurturing vigilance about her. “Have you seen the cartoon?” she asked, worry in her voice. A cartoon? Whatever it was, I hadn’t seen it. “It’s in The Timaru Herald.” Almost apologetically, she placed a newspaper on my desk, folded to reveal a cartoon image of a boxing ring. In the far corner, a weary-looking David Cunliffe sat on a stool wearing boxing gloves. A speech bubble above his head said, “Caucus would only accept my preferred team if I found a role for Jacinda Ardern.” In the foreground was a depiction of me. I wore a bikini and black stiletto boots. My toothy smile was enormous, as was my hair. In my hands I held a sign that said, ROUND ONE. I glanced at the date of the paper: It had been printed that morning. September 19. Women’s Suffrage Day.

I left our short meeting on K Road that day believing undisputedly—whether you are born into a Mormon household or an agnostic one, a small town like Murupara or a big city like Auckland—we are who we are, and no one should ever be told that is not enough. Not Grant. Not Walter. Not anyone. Not ever.

I’d head to a school. I loved talking to young people about politics and decision making; I even loved the pointed questions they asked. Often on these visits, I’d talk to the students about leadership, and test what they believed leadership looked like. I’d ask students to close their eyes, imagine a politician, and then tell me what they saw. They’d raise their hands and describe the images that came to mind—“male,” “old,” “gray.” Then they would turn to what they heard, or the tone of voice from this imaginary person. The words would come quickly. “Confident.” “Angry.” “Aggressive.” I would repeat this exercise in multiple classrooms, up and down the country; the answers were always the same. And it was no wonder students thought that; it’s all they saw in the media. I would never be that kind of leader, and I didn’t want to try. If the only way to put runs on the board in opposition was attacking and tearing people down, then maybe I was mediocre. I didn’t want to choose between being a good politician and being what I considered a good person. So I settled into the criticism.

I wanted, in other words, to put into practice kaitiakitanga—to build a New Zealand even better than the way we found it.

Some people thought kindness was sentimental, soft. A bit naive, even. I knew this. But I also knew they were wrong. Kindness has a power and strength that almost nothing else on this planet has. I’d seen kindness do extraordinary things: I’d seen it give people hope; I’d seen it change minds and transform lives. I wasn’t afraid to say it aloud, and as soon as I did, I was sure: kindness. This would be my guiding principle no matter what lay ahead.

realized the only chance I’d have to pump was a one-hour flight from New Plymouth to Auckland. I had portable pumps, ones that you could tuck under your blouse without being connected to anything external. I popped them on in an airport bathroom, then boarded the plane. When the plane took off, I switched the pump on, reassuring myself that the engines would cover the pumps’ tiny motor, which sounded like the milking sheds back in Morrinsville.