“Everyone seems to be struggling,” the New Zealand Herald headlined in heavy type on the front of Tuesday’s paper which was devoted largely to ‘informing your vote’ election features.
My morning news cycle had actually started well with the announcement that our Rt Hon Dame Jacinda Ardern GNZM is joining the University of Sydney’s prestigious Faculty of Medicine and Health as Professor of Practice.
She and I had a great working relationship in the years when she was MP for the island and gulf. A woman who was graceful under the biting pen of Metro commentor Matthew Hooton and strikingly intelligent and relatable.
I thought she would never take a bad picture, although later and larger media has often managed to find an unflattering moment.
So I was reliving the enigma of that disturbing demise of her political career, even as I was untangling the fate of the young former Labour candidate for Tāmaki Makarau, Kerrin Leonie, who resigned from the Labour party after a whānau fundraising event in Papakura attended by Mongrel Mob members on 3 October became a political hanging offence.
“I genuinely believed I was doing the right thing. I did not want the controversy surrounding me and my whānau to become a distraction from Labour’s wider campaign,” Kerrin said. She confirmed to us this week she will still be actively campaigning as an independent candidate.
Adherents of the hard right will relish the distraction tactic at this critical stage of the election. Appalled opponents – the ones concerned for the 50 percent of the working population that owns a tiny 6.7 percent of the country’s enormous wealth – have done exceptionally badly this last three years.
“The furore over Māori MPs gatherings with gang members smacks of double standards, cheap politicking and racism,” Liz Horgan of Mt Albert wrote in the Herald’s letters column. “Former leaders like Sir Robert Muldoon, Sir John Key, Sir Pita Sharples and Dame Jacinda Ardern had all engaged with gangs to support rehabilitation. No one accused them of condoning criminality.
“Numerous studies prove that high deprivation, unemployment and income inequality reliably predict gang growth. Voters must see this distraction for what it is,” she said.
“If New Zealanders really want to do something constructive about reducing gang numbers, we must back politicians genuinely committed to tackling our shameful inequality.”
Obviously, that time hasn’t yet come, though there are cracks.
Nicky Hagar’s most recent, book Dirty Work succinctly laid out Jordan Williams’ Taxpayers Union playbook for winning this year’s election for National, including the wonders of AI which, apparently, could be entrusted to turn out magnificent artwork at a tiny fraction of their previous cost in artists and designers.
The Herald feature included a full-page ad on A4, authorised by NZ Media Holdings 2023 Ltd warning National voters not to give their party vote tick to National. Apparently it might put Labour and all the opposition party leaders (shown waving airbrushed champaign glasses) ‘back in government’.
By mid-morning RNZ was reporting that the Sensible Sentencing Trust had also launched election attack ads featuring Green co-leaders Chlöe Swarbrick and Marama Davidson and Labour leader Chris Hipkins, alongside the text “Backing the gangs” and artfully placed above the Greens’ own campaign slogan “for all of us”.
We know stupendous power and money is up for grabs and can sense the deniable forces out of public sight and the mindless resentment that dogged Ardern a decade ago when she was a rising political star – well before she became our youngest prime minister and later (and still) the western world’s darling.
She will focus on empathetic leadership, social cohesion and civic trust; further developing new approaches to global and values-based leadership; as well as exploring new ways to address global health challenges centred on equity, inclusion and wellbeing.
Professor Mark Scott AO, Vice-Chancellor said Ardern had led New Zealand through events of profound consequence and her leadership demonstrated that empathy and resolve do not compete with one another; each can strengthen the other.
“I have long admired the courage and humanity she brought to public life.
“Her contribution will enrich our work in public health, public policy and across the university. For our students, the opportunity to learn from Dame Jacinda is exceptional, they will meet not only a former Prime Minister, but a thoughtful teacher with a great deal to share about public leadership and service.”
The question of leadership – and how we can better support the kind of leadership needed to tackle the many global challenges, had been an abiding enquiry since leaving office, Jacinda said.
She will join author Anna Funder at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday 1 November 2026 for a conversation about how humans can disagree while still listening to and learning from one another.
“For the first time, two of the world’s leading thinkers come together to explore how disagreement – when handled with courage and care – can help shape a more creative, connected society,” said Professor Mark.
We could hold on to that thought.
• Liz Waters
© Gulf News & Waiheke Weekender Ltd 2026
