WATCH: Jacinda Ardern gives her farewell speech in Parliament

Public Policy / news

Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gives her valedictory speech to Parliament

5th Apr 23, 5:20pm by Dan Brunskill

Photo: Dan Brunskill

Former prime minister Jacinda Ardern gives her final speech after 15 years as a member of parliament, with five in the top job, ahead of her official departure on April 14.

Retiring or resigning MPs make a valedictory statement. It's often used to reflect on what they have achieved, get some previously unshared comments on the formal record, and shore up their legacy.

The MP for Mount Albert may reflect on her leadership during times of crisis, namely the Christchurch terror attack in 2019 and the Covid-19 pandemic the following year.

Ardern made history in both her terms as Prime Minister. During her first term, she became the second head of government to give birth in office and won the first ever parliamentary majority since MMP was introduced in her second term.

When asked in a Newshub exit interview, Ardern said her final message to NZ will be a “thank you.”

Once out of parliament, she will continue to serve as New Zealand’s Special Envoy for the Christchurch Call, an international network she set up to combat online extremism, in a voluntary capacity.

She will also join the board of Prince William’s climate charity, Earthshot Prize, which awards grants to innovative ideas to fight climate change.

Watch the speech here:

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88 Comments

by Albert2020 | 5th Apr 23, 5:28pm 1680672535

Waiting for the hate to fill the comments section in 3, 2, 1 ......

by Mr Frank | 5th Apr 23, 5:33pm 1680672814

Done. At your request.

Truth hurts.

by Fegus Woodward | 6th Apr 23, 9:17am 1680729464

The way she fixed child poverty and the housing crisis was my personal favourites of her long list of doing. She pulled NZ together in a really challenging time, It all feels like we are paddling in the same waka together as one.

by Frank Sobotka | 6th Apr 23, 10:24am 1680733487

Agreed. Over promised and under delivered.

Tilting your head to the side and putting a concerned face on and promising to be kind is one thing, making hard political decisions to fix underlying issues (which have existed for decades) is another.

I wish her well for the future.

by Pathos | 6th Apr 23, 3:43pm 1680752637

Fegus Woodward, I take it your comment is tongue-in-cheek.

by Mr Frank | 5th Apr 23, 5:31pm 1680672703

Oh please spare us!

The PM who wanted the glamour of the job but couldn't handle the questions from Hosking on ZB because she couldn't get her team to deliver anything.

She fled knowing she was going to lose.

All talk, all fluff, little results. It is the truth.

by Foxglove. | 5th Apr 23, 8:03pm 1680681818

NZH 7.07 pm, “the email that went out just two minutes after she had concluded her speech included two links to the Labour Party donation page.” Fair enough, but here hasty pecuniary opportunity would seem to outweigh dignity as the image fades into the sunset. Has a sort of moneylenders in the temple feel to it.

by treadlightly | 5th Apr 23, 10:12pm 1680689537

A fool can ask questions that a wise person can never answer.

by Gummy Bear Hero | 6th Apr 23, 9:59am 1680731976

I reject the premise of your question !

by Baywatch | 6th Apr 23, 10:51am 1680735080

She was so over working for people like Mr Frank..

by Mr Frank | 6th Apr 23, 10:59am 1680735558

I paid her salary but she knew a poor performance rating was coming and made a bee line for the door.

by HouseMouse | 5th Apr 23, 5:36pm 1680672973

No thanks

by Von Metternich | 5th Apr 23, 5:56pm 1680674175

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

by vman | 5th Apr 23, 6:26pm 1680676016

At least it's a door,the Nats have a turnstile...

by GV 27 | 6th Apr 23, 6:52am 1680720754

Vman pumping out the 'BUT THE NATS' posts by the second in this comment thread.

by Mr Frank | 6th Apr 23, 7:29am 1680722993

Light on material I suspect GV...

by GV 27 | 6th Apr 23, 7:44am 1680723862

Should try the Deputy PM's line, she was still trying out the 'Nine years of neglect' rubbish this morning on RNZ. How many years of neglect does she think she can rack up before she accepts some responsibility for our current malaise?

by vman | 6th Apr 23, 8:06am 1680725182

ad hominem Frank..

by vman | 6th Apr 23, 8:05am 1680725129

Well,you need some balance,there is a big possibility that there is a Nat/ACT government,they shouldn't be given a free ride based on 'anyone but Labour'...thats what gets us into trouble every time...everyone sitting around in here p*ssing on JA doesn't actually achieve much...

So far the Nats have said they will remove the top tax bracket(since redacted) and remove the the taxation tightening around investment properties...so in reality,they want to rinse & repeat.

by GV 27 | 6th Apr 23, 11:05am 1680735953

That's the rub though - how does the 'Anyone but X' mindset come about? For Clark, it was sitting on the sidelines as houses rose and rose, only headed off by the GFC, and offering scant tax relief. That gave us Key, ultimately turfed out for... well probably the same thing. And now we have Labour in their second term who are on the hook for... housing costs and tax.

I'm spotting a theme here, and perhaps it is more to do with the insulated reality of Wellington vs. the rest of the country. Pretty hard to justify so much of the country's wages ending up in Wellington to deliver fewer and fewer services, while the same people who fund the state are copping it in every which direction. It seems like no major party is interested in making that work for anyone outside the bubble, and policy quickly gives way to patch protection, no matter which party you vote for.

by Foxglove. | 6th Apr 23, 1:24pm 1680744257

I hope she has the sense and good grace to decline a knighthood. It was as ridiculous as it was egotistical for PM Key to re-introduce them. The founding Labour PMs disdained them and so too Lange & Clark. The exception being Sir Walter Nash knighted in a much different day, by the Holyoake National government and deservedly and understandably so, after over thirty years of parliamentary service, the war cabinet and three years a Prime Minister. It would place her in the lesser category of Rowling and Palmer who could only have had some sort of personal reasons to go against the trend.

by fortunr | 6th Apr 23, 7:49am 1680724155

Agree. Good riddance.

by nzforall | 5th Apr 23, 6:08pm 1680674928

Gone and forgotten toot sweet

by vman | 5th Apr 23, 6:24pm 1680675889

nzforall....I doubt she will be forgotten,she will be living rent free in your head and others,every time you see her face online globally...and more over,she won't even know who you are as you wring your hands in anger...(edited spelling mistake...)

by Foxglove. | 5th Apr 23, 6:26pm 1680675987

An ager? All wrung out! That’s a bit close to home, but good to see the praetorian guard, still on parade, even though the Empress has fled.Just kidding!

by vman | 5th Apr 23, 6:25pm 1680675910

Whose home?

by Foxglove. | 5th Apr 23, 6:48pm 1680677291

My apologies. Presumed you had misspelled agger.

by HGWR | 5th Apr 23, 6:14pm 1680675243

I never voted for her, and I'm sure other commenters will be queuing up to lament her lack of achievements, so I'll focus on a few positives.

She led an excellent response to the pandemic that enabled us to spend most of the last three years living in relative normality whilst the rest of the world endured rolling restrictions, loss of life and poorer economic outcomes.

She's been good for our image overseas, not unimportant given our reliance on skilled immigration now and in the future.

She's provided an inspiring example, especially to young women and girls, of how to lead without resorting to masculine tropes to convey strength and authority. As a bloke, I hope our future politics features more Jacinda-style empathy and less of the confrontational bluster we get from the likes of Nash, Mallard, Winnie etc. We will get more talent into parliament that way.

by singautim | 5th Apr 23, 6:36pm 1680676604

Agreed and well said. I preferred Andrew Little but I've never met anyone who agrees with me (I must meet his mother someday). Being PM does have a PR component and she did that well. Hopefully she will stay as inconspicuous as Angela Merkel has been since she lost power.

by redcows1 | 5th Apr 23, 8:52pm 1680684762

We haven't meet but I'm with you. But then I the first edition of Bill English would have been the leader the actual time he was not so much. But most disagree with me on that too.

by fortunr | 6th Apr 23, 7:51am 1680724299

Andrew Little ? Are you referring to the same guy who turned public healthcare into a complete dog's breakfast ?

by KH | 6th Apr 23, 8:22am 1680726133

It's the workers in public healthcare who turned it into a dog's breakfast. I was in the middle of it. Mere politicians did not get a look in.

by HouseMouse | 5th Apr 23, 6:50pm 1680677459

The initial response was excellent. I don’t think the mid and latter stages of the response were.

She and her government failed to deliver on the majority of their policy priorities. On some, their delivery was truly pathetic.

Their rhetoric - yet more lies - has been about openness and transparency. Again, there has been a gulf between rhetoric and reality.

They talk a good game about public participation. Yet they have pushed through a number of things with very little public participation.

There’s many more issues….

good things? Very few, but some of the property tax changes?

I give her a bare pass as a PM - a C+ - and her government a D.

by RickStrauss | 6th Apr 23, 7:34am 1680723273

On the pandemic, they were good. On the rest, they were largely another National. Although credit to them for free trades training and for finally making some policy progress on housing - if still pandering too much to property.

by Stuart Mason | 6th Apr 23, 8:20am 1680726022

Good summary HM. Your rating is probably in line with many past PMs.

The difference with Ardern is that, in an ever more connected global world, her natural advantages and adept performance on the international stage, made her standout an a way that was way beyond what her performance in New Zealand justified.

by dumbthoughts | 6th Apr 23, 8:47am 1680727633

Largely agreed.

I think in the early days (i.e. first term) she did a good job at elevating NZ's profile on the world stage and was quite adept at responding empathetically to disasters, albeit perhaps interjecting herself a bit too much - although maybe that is just how the media covered her so I'll give that a pass. I do believe she had some good intentions as well with respect to issues such as child poverdee but as we all know the delivery has been disastrous.

She faced some unfair criticism on a sexist/misogynist, and also age basis. At the same time, she was defended by a legion of 'white knights' who would do anything for their Queen.

Apart from locking Kiwis out of the country (which I'll never agree with as being acceptable - more should have been done to secure additional MiQ facilities) the rest of the first phase of the Covid response did buy NZ some time and allow us a period of relative normality.

For me, it largely fell apart from the re-election. It's almost like the electoral success + media adulation got to her head. She needed one of those people who used to walk beside the Roman Emperors of old whispering in the ear 'remember Caesar, you too are only human'. She seemed to "go off the rails" at that point.

I also think she relied too much on division as a political strategy. Ardern and the government as a whole were very eager to leverage issues of 'us vs them' for political advantage. For example, gun owners were 'them' (I've never owned a gun, never will) ute owners were 'them' (never owned a ute, I ride a bike) and most notably anyone who showed any aspect of questioning/resistance to the Covid response was 'them' (this was the biggie)

In the end that division and polarisation came back to bite her in the behind, as the public grew increasingly tired of this plus her ever-more-condescending nature towards the same public. She lived by the sword and died by it, in that respect.

Regardless, I hope she can enjoy a nice family life, whatever that means and looks like for her, and that now she is out of her public role she can go about her business safely and in relative "peace and quiet".

by Frank Sobotka | 6th Apr 23, 10:29am 1680733753

Well said. A great debut followed by the difficult second album

by J.C. | 5th Apr 23, 6:59pm 1680677958

Other countries do not have the privilege of being isolated islands at the end of the world.

by Foxglove. | 5th Apr 23, 8:28pm 1680683332

No doubt about it she excelled at pathos. For White Island, the Terrorist attack, and Covid initially, that sufficed and the resultant status of an international celebrity carried the day much much longer than any degree of substance that was actually behind it. In that regard, of recent Labour Prime Ministers, she ranks well behind, Mike Moore, Norman Kirk, David Lange, Helen Clark and also if he should remain PM in October, Chris Hipkins who presently is doing his very best to extricate himself, and his party , from the barrow load of excrement that has been dumped on him from out of her prime ministership.

by Belle | 6th Apr 23, 11:08am 1680736109

Dumped on him. Aw please...he was her Mr Go To. If Hipkins didnt help create all these failures who did?

by Foxglove. | 7th Apr 23, 5:36pm 1680845776

Good point, but I was thinking mainly of the Nash saga which percolated out of her PM’s office and that cannot be denied. And that is pretty damning because if there is one thing that New Zealanders deserve to be able to trust, out of all the multi government functions, it is in the integrity and capability of a Prime Minister and associated office.

by Driftwood | 5th Apr 23, 11:07pm 1680692857

The COVID response was a disaster. We just did not pay the price at the time but are starting to now.

by Baywatch | 6th Apr 23, 10:53am 1680735221

Bollocks..

by Gummy Bear Hero | 6th Apr 23, 1:55pm 1680746159

When Chris Hipkins bragged that we were at the front of the queue for the Pfizer vaccines , he was at the far end of the queue & was facing the wrong way ... twat !

by Foxglove. | 6th Apr 23, 2:23pm 1680747797

You mean the far queue? Or as the French might put it, we were actually fuqued.

by Fossil Lover | 6th Apr 23, 7:43am 1680723783

Totally wrong. You lived the last 3 years in lockdown, people unable to come home, no jab, no job, to perform a hideous gene therapy experiment on Team NZ and the clinical trial continues with all cause deaths on the rise (loss of life). NZ had the rolling restrictions (MIQ, stay at home in fear and don't talk to your neighbors). Nothing normal there. NZ has a $34.8 account deficit with the rest of the world, is that not a poor economic outcome, not to mention the government spending that has driven inflation and put our fiat currency in downfall.

And I will not start on what the rest of the world think of Ardern, it is certainly not reported in the government sponsored media here in NZ.

by General Comment | 6th Apr 23, 8:09am 1680725374

Please do start on what the rest of the world thinks of Ardern, I'm genuinely interested. Links would be handy.

by vman | 6th Apr 23, 8:17am 1680725876

General Comment...careful using links some in here would provide...you will be on the GCSB's watch list lol...

by Gummy Bear Hero | 6th Apr 23, 10:07am 1680732440

Hunt out some articles by senior political journalist Greg Sheridan in Australia ...

by Frank Sobotka | 6th Apr 23, 10:31am 1680733897

The Telegraph and the Daily Mail in the UK were both major critics. Daily Mail led by Dan Wootton a kiwi done well.

Alan Jones and Piers Morgan both overseas broadcasters who took major aim at her as well

by Feedup | 6th Apr 23, 10:24am 1680733456

Well said, and a good focus on the positive rather than the negative, of which, unfortunately, there is plenty.

by vman | 5th Apr 23, 6:14pm 1680675286

As John key said on the news tonight,as an ex PM...haters gonna hate,lovers gonna love.

by Mr Frank | 5th Apr 23, 6:17pm 1680675477

Hipkins supported all of Ardern's policies so don't forget it's the same Labour with a different face. Yet most of NZ are too uneducated to know and vote for personality.

by vman | 5th Apr 23, 6:23pm 1680675829

Is that like the same National with a different face?

by Mr Frank | 5th Apr 23, 6:24pm 1680675893

They are in opposition and can't change anything so what's your point?

by vman | 5th Apr 23, 6:26pm 1680675963

Are they?...I thought ACT was the official oppostion lol...

by Mr Frank | 5th Apr 23, 7:52pm 1680681178

ACT has sense unlike Labour who thought giving cost of living payments to those overseas and 6 feet under were sensible use of taxpayer's money.

by Gummy Bear Hero | 6th Apr 23, 1:52pm 1680745950

... and , once again , this was against the advice of their public servants , the IRD & the Treasury , who slammed it ...

So Robbo , how do the deceased spend their cost of living payments ... do they go shopping in the dead of the night ?

by Foxglove. | 6th Apr 23, 5:18pm 1680758310

The walking dead. The parade about Nash had that look about it didn’t it.

by kiwikidsnz | 5th Apr 23, 9:10pm 1680685852

Fresh lipstick, same pig.

by fortunr | 6th Apr 23, 7:54am 1680724488

Do not underestimate him. I do not support this Government, but he can well win the elections. He is a very smart politician.

by Fegus Woodward | 6th Apr 23, 9:14am 1680729288

Have you seen the video of him being asked to define a woman? - internationally viral. That isn't smart and he isn't Chippy from the Hutt. He is the same as alll the other identity politic weirdos. Focused on nonsense instead of what needs to get done.

by Mr Frank | 5th Apr 23, 8:25pm 1680683108

The PM who illegally stopped Kiwis from coming home.

Lest we forget.

by RickStrauss | 6th Apr 23, 7:35am 1680723303

Untrue, though.

by Gummy Bear Hero | 6th Apr 23, 1:37pm 1680745021

Charlotte Bellis , pregnant & stuck in Afghanistan ... the Taliban were kinder to her than the NZ government was ... oh , the shame of that !

by Fossil Lover | 6th Apr 23, 7:47am 1680724033

I certainly will not forget (MIQ was incarceration), nor will I forgive.

by HouseMouse | 5th Apr 23, 10:19pm 1680689943

It looks like Dan is a really solid journo as well as a good photographer!

by Shaft | 5th Apr 23, 10:19pm 1680689980

the most genuine and belivable PM ever

Brought the country together

Fixed health

Fixed child poverty

Improvèd race relations

Crime down

Covid eliminated

Govt debt reduced

Reduced coal burning

Improved health and surgery outcomes/waitjng times

Better education outcomes

Road to zero trending downwards

Sorted housing

,,,,

by HouseMouse | 5th Apr 23, 10:35pm 1680690919

You forgot ‘Improved the RBNZ’s mandate’ and ‘completed Auckland’s light rail by 2021’

by JamesM | 5th Apr 23, 10:40pm 1680691252

I rate JA the second worst PM in my lifetime. Only Piggy Muldoon was worse.

by HouseMouse | 5th Apr 23, 10:49pm 1680691769

Yep I agree.

I don’t like Key but I certainly think he was a better PM than Ardern.

Shipley wasn’t that great.

by fortunr | 6th Apr 23, 7:56am 1680724591

I rate JA as the worst PM in NZ history, sharing the honours with Muldoon.

by unaha-closp | 6th Apr 23, 4:57pm 1680757034

Ardern and Muldoon both went about violently suppressing protests. There was broad public support to do so at the time and they acted within that support.

Then after the fact NZ public then changed its collective mind about how protests should be dealt with. So Ardern and Muldoon got reviled as two of our worst PMs.

by Gummy Bear Hero | 6th Apr 23, 12:16am 1680696982

Different PM's for different circumstances : if I wanted an entertaining guest at a dinner party , I'd call David Lange ... if I wanted a cure for insomnia , I'd listen to a Jim Bolger speech ... if I wanted an intellectual discussion , Helen Clark ... if I wanted a mate around the BBQ , John Key ... if I was feeling down & needed a hug , Jacinda Ardern ...

by Foxglove. | 6th Apr 23, 9:00am 1680728434

And Mike Moore if you needed a bit of ebullience and some honest advice.

by Gummy Bear Hero | 6th Apr 23, 9:46am 1680731189

Bill English if you need to know the best drench to de-worm your cattle in winter ...

by vman | 6th Apr 23, 10:09am 1680732555

Or how to get a dodgy accomodation allowance for your own property get across the line...

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2910957/Bill-English-buckles-…

Caving in to pressure, Bill English has paid back $32,000 and vowed to stop claiming a housing allowance.

The deputy prime minister admitted yesterday that the row over his housing allowance had taken his attention away from running the economy, while Prime Minister John Key said the row had become "an unfortunate distraction".

Mr English has come under fire over allowances he claimed for living in his $1.2 million Karori house, but has failed to shut down the controversy since it was revealed by The Dominion Post in July.

by General Comment | 6th Apr 23, 8:08am 1680725320

Muldoon if you just wanted to get smashed and wake up the next day in someone's garden in another city.

by KH | 6th Apr 23, 8:17am 1680725850

Form over substance.

by Final Account | 6th Apr 23, 9:03am 1680728582

Great empathy and good at the celebrity aspect however as other comments have said there is a gaping chasm between the rhetoric and reality.

Would anyone else have done any better? Probably not.

by Contrarian | 6th Apr 23, 10:16am 1680733007

A great leader, a great service to Aotearoa, a great person and of course, a Great Speech. Go well, Jacinda. We are all so proud of you and your leadership that most importantly SAVED LIVES in Aotearoa.

by r.james | 6th Apr 23, 10:42am 1680734567

She was just like Obama, talked a great story ,achieved nothing and divided the country.good luck and goodbye

by Contrarian | 6th Apr 23, 2:01pm 1680746484

She did much more to keep New Zealand safe than Obama did for America.

by r.james | 7th Apr 23, 2:39am 1680791978

stop reading the headlines Obama was useless ,he promised everything and achieved nothing as I have lived in the USA for 20 years and Ardern kept actually safe from what, covid. see no one talks about it here now in the USA, it was just to control the masses, it worked for a while then everyone woke up. Ardern nearly turned NZ in a Chinese suburb. Wake up

by Hamish | 6th Apr 23, 12:32pm 1680741167

She had a tough start and despite some scrambling mistakes by agencies around how to manage COVID at the start managed it very well IMO. Hindsight makes it easy to poke holes in the response, but at the time I though she did a very good job.

What turned me off though was the switch from team of 5 million to how the priminister and speaker of the house treated their citizens who came to their doorstep to be heard about their opposition to the vaccination mandate. It could have been handled so much better. Very hard to have managed it in a unifying way, but to go hard down the divisive line that they did was very disheartening to see.

And then to be given a majority second term government freed of the shackles of NZ First, her party seems to have ultimately squandered the majority mandate that could have used better.

by fat pat | 6th Apr 23, 7:36pm 1680766560

Everyone has the right to refuse to undergo any medical treatment. But she and her government knew better.

Bureaucratic censorship, propaganda, character assassinations, and media control all had to be ramped up to 1950s East Germany levels to combat the resistance.

Unfortunately the medical treatment was counterproductive, lockdowns were ineffective, but the economic damage was real. Oopsy-daisy.

by Superhoops | 7th Apr 23, 7:58am 1680811139

One of the most choreographed / stage managed premierships in history. Managed the media very well but achieved very little. Whilst the hate was abhorrent, it is evidence that she left a divided country where the ‘kindness’ was extended only to those that fitted in with the ideologically driven agenda. Ask property investors, farmers, small business people, immigrants whether they thought she was kind. Inadvertently made a lot of her ‘flock’ worse off. Renters a prime example. In retrospect, was the COVID era well managed? Whilst I’m not an anti vaxxer, that group were treated very unkindly and almost excluded from society by COVID rules.

by NZ Citizen | 7th Apr 23, 9:29am 1680816567

Farewell Comrade. You'll go down as the best PM in New Zealand history. You left the country in a better place. Thanks for raising awareness about climate change, pronouns, and all sorts of wonderful ideologies. I'll invite you to my birthday party. We can eat bugs and ride unicycles and have a nap in the afternoon in a safe space.

Thanks again. Love NZ Citizen - he/ him/ tablecloth/ Professional Tuvan throat singer.