Speaker 1: Pushkin Hey Slight Changers Maya here. A few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: I was invited to sit down for a conversation with
Speaker 1: former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arderne. This event was
Speaker 1: recorded live in San Francisco and was hosted by City
Speaker 1: Arts and Lectures, which hosts long form conversations with everyone
Speaker 1: from Bruce Springsteen to Yuval Noah Harari live on stage
Speaker 1: and on their podcast. I wanted to share this conversation
Speaker 1: with you all because the content feels so fitting for
Speaker 1: a slight change of plans. As you'll hear, Jacinda was
Speaker 1: an unlikely politician and took some unusual turns on her
Speaker 1: way to becoming the most powerful person in New yaeland
Speaker 1: I also think there's a lot we can learn from
Speaker 1: her story, like her approach to conflict and her empathetic
Speaker 1: leadership style. I'm so excited to share this special episode
Speaker 1: with all of you. I really hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Welcome to City Arts and Lectures, a season of talks
Speaker 2: and on stage conversations with some of the most celebrated writers, artists,
Speaker 2: and thinkers of our day, recorded before an audience at
Speaker 2: the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco. Our guest today
Speaker 2: is the right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern. When she became
Speaker 2: Prime Minister of New Zealand at the age of thirty seven,
Speaker 2: Ardren was the youngest female head of government in the world.
Speaker 2: Her tenure coincided with a particularly challenging period, including a
Speaker 2: major mass shooting, the COVID nineteen pandemic, and a volcanic eruption.
Speaker 2: Among her notable accomplishments abortion law reform, groundbreaking legislation on
Speaker 2: climate change, and a leadership style marked by empathy. On
Speaker 2: June ninth, twenty twenty five, on the occasion of her
Speaker 2: just published memoir, Arderne came to the Sidney Goldstein Theater
Speaker 2: in San Francisco, where she talked to doctor Maya Shunkar
Speaker 2: about her Mormon childhood, her unexpected nomination to office, and
Speaker 2: her personal vision for compassionate government leaders. Join us now
Speaker 2: for a conversation with Dame Jacinda Arderne.
Speaker 1: That's what a crowd, What a nice crowd. We are
Speaker 1: so excited to have you here. Decinda in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: She told me I could call Hersinda. We're sort of
Speaker 1: on a first name basis. You've written this beautiful book,
Speaker 1: and you talk about, of course the politics of it all,
Speaker 1: but you really share a very vulnerable personal story, and
Speaker 1: tonight I want to dig in to some of those
Speaker 1: to share with this crowd. So I'd love to start
Speaker 1: by traveling both back in time and across the globe
Speaker 1: to New Zealand to revisit young Desinda.
Speaker 3: This is the moment where I roll out a couch
Speaker 3: and I logged down from my therapy station in front
Speaker 3: of an intimate audience.
Speaker 1: Exactly. I'm curious to hear what kind of values your
Speaker 1: parents instilled in you.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, I can't see any of you
Speaker 3: at all joined with fright lights, but I just wanted
Speaker 3: to to say cured to Koto Namah nuk Koto, Hello
Speaker 3: to everyone, Thank you for joining us this evening. You
Speaker 3: know you're right, it is an intimate book. And I'm
Speaker 3: not sure if I knew I was doing that at
Speaker 3: the time, but oh well, I was asked a lot
Speaker 3: during my time in office, and particularly you know when
Speaker 3: I first entered as an MP. You know, why have
Speaker 3: you chosen politics? And when people ask you that question
Speaker 3: when you're in politics, it's not the way they ask
Speaker 3: you a question if you, for instance, go into psychology,
Speaker 3: or if you go into engineering, there's this question mark
Speaker 3: at the end that's very pointed, why, as if you're
Speaker 3: not of sane mind. And I understand that politics is
Speaker 3: a really a really tough place to be, and so
Speaker 3: when people would ask me, they would often want to
Speaker 3: dig into what is it about you that has made
Speaker 3: you want to go and be in this particular place.
Speaker 3: And as I was writing, there were certain things about
Speaker 3: my younger years that I thought, Oh, I'd never really
Speaker 3: thought of that particular thing before. But it is true
Speaker 3: that kindness has always been a really important value for me.
Speaker 3: Service has always been a really important value for me,
Speaker 3: and there's no question that my parents instilled both of
Speaker 3: those in me. But the idea of the strength of kindness,
Speaker 3: the fact that these two duel character traits can coexist
Speaker 3: in a person, despite what people say about the trade
Speaker 3: of kindness, I actually saw in my father as I
Speaker 3: was writing. My father was a policeman for forty years
Speaker 3: and we lived in a really small town called Mudupada
Speaker 3: in New Zealand during a period of great economic disruption.
Speaker 3: So there was a lot of poverty in the town
Speaker 3: that we lived in, and I think when the new
Speaker 3: policeman rolls into town. I can tell you that does
Speaker 3: not make you popular at school if that person is
Speaker 3: your dad. And I remember really believing though, even as
Speaker 3: like a five and six year old, that as soon
Speaker 3: as they got to know my dad, things would get better.
Speaker 3: So he worked on winning over the community. He even
Speaker 3: put himself up for the school fear. They used to
Speaker 3: do a little fundraiser down at the primary school where
Speaker 3: they would have a dunking machine. I'm not sure if
Speaker 3: that's a thing here, but in his full uniform in
Speaker 3: the middle of winter, he sat on the end of
Speaker 3: this dunking machine. Everyone got so much joy.
Speaker 1: Plunging him into an ice pool.
Speaker 3: That was one of the realizations I had kindness and strength.
Speaker 3: He embodied both so clearly for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you write in the book that he valued listening
Speaker 1: so much, and so you know he wanted to know
Speaker 1: not just what crimes people had committed, but why they
Speaker 1: had committed those crimes. Right, you had to understand the psychology.
Speaker 1: Tell me more about what that kind of example meant
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 3: And I remember, you know, some examples of where he
Speaker 3: would try and redirect me a little bit, where I
Speaker 3: had this very black and white, you know, view of
Speaker 3: my dad, the policeman. And I know I was proud
Speaker 3: of the job that he had because they used to
Speaker 3: make in New Zealand these little t shirts for kids
Speaker 3: that had a little police badge on the corner of them,
Speaker 3: and I know I used to wear mine to school
Speaker 3: a little too often because I was really proud of
Speaker 3: what he did. But I share a story in the
Speaker 3: book about a time when I remember we lived in
Speaker 3: the police house, and so in order to get to
Speaker 3: town by a twenty cent lollimix. You that's the kind
Speaker 3: of specificity you can expect in the book, I had
Speaker 3: to I had to cut through because you remember the
Speaker 3: little things when you're a kid, the first name and
Speaker 3: the last name of all your school friends. And now
Speaker 3: I can't even remember mindphone number now, but I remember that.
Speaker 3: So I would cut through the police station car park
Speaker 3: to get down to town. And one day I was
Speaker 3: I was doing that on on my own when I
Speaker 3: saw my dad surrounded by a group of gang members,
Speaker 3: you know, and I was little, but I knew enough
Speaker 3: to know that that he was not in a good situation.
Speaker 3: I just remember his hand being out as this group
Speaker 3: circled around him, and I didn't want to be seen,
Speaker 3: but I also couldn't tear my eyes away from the
Speaker 3: situation because I was worried about him. But as soon
Speaker 3: as he caught my eye, just told me to move on.
Speaker 3: But it was later that night when I asked him
Speaker 3: about it. You know, I wanted to hear some big
Speaker 3: story about, you know, Dad, did you kung fu chop someone?
Speaker 3: You know, did you do something? My dad was not
Speaker 3: a tall man either, and so I was amazed that
Speaker 3: he was okay whatever had happened. He was really disappointed,
Speaker 3: I could tell by the line of quistioning I had,
Speaker 3: and he just said to me to sit here, the
Speaker 3: woods will be the greatest tool I ever have, And
Speaker 3: what a lesson for someone. But that was kind of
Speaker 3: the way that he was. And it was a few
Speaker 3: years later when I was a little older, a little
Speaker 3: more able to understand his job. He was a detective
Speaker 3: by this point, so he was particularly spent a lot
Speaker 3: of time on homicide cases. And I remember our trip
Speaker 3: away for summer holidays was ended abruptly when there was
Speaker 3: a homicide in our local city and we came back
Speaker 3: and after a few weeks, I remember him making an arrest,
Speaker 3: because I saw his picture on the front page of
Speaker 3: the paper, and I remember his face and he was
Speaker 3: taking in the suspect into court, and he just looked
Speaker 3: so sad, And I remember saying to it, but Dad,
Speaker 3: you solved the.
Speaker 1: Crime, you know, why did not the bad guy got
Speaker 1: the bad Why did you?
Speaker 3: Why did you look like that? And then he sat
Speaker 3: down and he told me the story that had led
Speaker 3: up to those circumstances, and how awful it was for everyone,
Speaker 3: for everyone, including the family of the person that he
Speaker 3: was arresting. The world was never black and white for
Speaker 3: my dad. And what a gift is a child to
Speaker 3: be to be taught that early on.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Another character trait that you expressed somewhat unusually, I would
Speaker 1: say for a young child is the joy of feeling useful. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm an aunt to six nieces nephews. I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: necessarily that's their most defining trade is desired to be
Speaker 1: a super useful kid. They're just having fun and playing
Speaker 1: around and you you talk in your book, it was
Speaker 1: such a charming story. I think of being like on
Speaker 1: a paper route and there's this like really like nasty
Speaker 1: dog at one of the houses and you're like, nope,
Speaker 1: gotta gotta throw a newspaper over there.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean, I don't know whether or not
Speaker 3: there was an example of usefulness or the extreme weight
Speaker 3: of guilt that I felt as a child that if
Speaker 3: I I mean because I was raised woman and so
Speaker 3: so many great characteristics about being raised in a church
Speaker 3: that is so centered on service. But one of the
Speaker 3: byproducts of that was I had this idea in my
Speaker 3: head that even when I was doing my pamphlet run
Speaker 3: up Lincoln Street, that if I missed a house, God
Speaker 3: was watching. And I don't know what interest God had
Speaker 3: in a supermarket fly being delivered to that particular house,
Speaker 3: but it was there.
Speaker 1: It was too small, no.
Speaker 3: And so I think I, yes, I was driven by
Speaker 3: the idea of being useful, but also the idea that
Speaker 3: I was at all times responsible for just always doing
Speaker 3: the right thing, and so that really it flowed down
Speaker 3: to the most minute minute thing for a while for me.
Speaker 1: Yeaheah, you've written that you never imagine even for a
Speaker 1: second that you had one day become prime minister, and
Speaker 1: you know the political world is hostile.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: You've gotten a memo from the United States recently, we're
Speaker 1: kind of having a tough time, Okay, Now is when
Speaker 1: you pull out my couch for for me to share
Speaker 1: my personal experience everyone. We In large part this is
Speaker 1: because you said, you know, you were a very sensitive kid,
Speaker 1: You were empathetic, and so I'm so curious to know,
Speaker 1: as someone who cares a lot about society but finds
Speaker 1: the political sphere so unsavory. What when did you have
Speaker 1: that first inkling that it was still going to be
Speaker 1: worth it for you, that you might still want to
Speaker 1: enter that sphere?
Speaker 3: Is such a good question. Worth it? You know? I
Speaker 3: think the worth it piece for me, I would just
Speaker 3: all a sense of responsibility because I think I've always
Speaker 3: I've always seen and still see politics as a place
Speaker 3: where you can genuinely make a difference. And this is
Speaker 3: the stretch probably for everyone to hear this right now
Speaker 3: as well. I've never stopped believing that politics is and
Speaker 3: should be a noble act of service. I do now,
Speaker 3: and it is. It is We're in a particular period
Speaker 3: in time where that is not what is currently being
Speaker 3: embodied by those who have making a difference. I'm putting
Speaker 3: a racist on a noble active service.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, I got it.
Speaker 3: And so the worth thing for me that in the
Speaker 3: round has always been there. But in order to be there,
Speaker 3: there's a lot that you have to experience. And I've
Speaker 3: always thought that there's two types of politicians in the world.
Speaker 3: There are those who actually are there because they think
Speaker 3: you can change things, you can fix problems, and that
Speaker 3: the rest actually you're you're there in spite of those things.
Speaker 3: And then there are the people who just love the
Speaker 3: cut and thrust. They like the power or the potential
Speaker 3: of power, they like the maneuvering, they like the dark arts.
Speaker 3: The majority is that not what you say here.
Speaker 1: It's mostly used in a Harry Potter contact sometimes.
Speaker 3: Well this is some kind of dystopian something so sentimentale.
Speaker 3: The majority of the majority of politicians that I have
Speaker 3: met have actually been in the first category. They have,
Speaker 3: and I would wager there a number in this country
Speaker 3: too who fall in that category. But there's not a
Speaker 3: lot of incentive for those to be the ones that
Speaker 3: succeed in spotlighted in the current environment, and there's lots
Speaker 3: of reasons we can talk about for that. So the
Speaker 3: moment that I decided it was worth it, I think
Speaker 3: I always believed it was worth it, but it just
Speaker 3: didn't make it feel easy. This is what I would say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've talked about the fact that in your early
Speaker 1: years in parliament, that's when it was really reinforced, reinforced
Speaker 1: for you that you weren't willing to change who you were, Right,
Speaker 1: you weren't willing to present differently or I thought about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So then so what was it that we feel I'm
Speaker 1: sure you did. Yeah, there are so many pressure. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've seen women in particular go through the political system
Speaker 1: and come out totally manufactured. Right, still died bizarre in
Speaker 1: years and I haven't. I don't think it's their fault.
Speaker 1: I think that the external forces shape them in really
Speaker 1: unfortunate ways. So obviously there was some luxury that you had, right,
Speaker 1: which is that you didn't have to change who you
Speaker 1: were potentially in your environment. But then you also made
Speaker 1: an active choice not to even if it was mebe
Speaker 1: expedient for you too, That's true, and that was probably
Speaker 1: helped by the fact that even so I was Some
Speaker 1: people think I had the relatively short career of being
Speaker 1: a Prime minister for.
Speaker 3: Six years, but I'd actually been in parliament in total
Speaker 3: for fifteen. I came in when I was twelve, and
Speaker 3: that nine years in opposition, WHI was being really tough
Speaker 3: because no one goes into politics to sit on the
Speaker 3: sidelines and just chip away and just lob across to
Speaker 3: the other side and tell them all the things they're
Speaker 3: doing wrong. You're there because you want to make a difference.
Speaker 3: The nineties in opposition is hard graft, but in a
Speaker 3: way it helped me decide what kind of politician I
Speaker 3: wanted to be, and I write about one of the
Speaker 3: moments where I decided that actually, yes, I was thin skinned.
Speaker 3: In the debating chamber was a really hard place to be.
Speaker 3: But there was an experience I had where I was
Speaker 3: the opposition spokesperson on child protection issues. It was a
Speaker 3: horrific case in the news of a mother who had
Speaker 3: abused her child, but she claimed that in her defense
Speaker 3: that at some point she'd written to the minister who
Speaker 3: was in charge to tell them that she was worried
Speaker 3: she would do something, and therefore the minister could have
Speaker 3: stopped it. I remember the news outlet coming to me
Speaker 3: and saying, we want to interview you about this. What
Speaker 3: will you say? And I said, well, I'd say that
Speaker 3: we need to fix this, this and this about our system.
Speaker 3: And they said yes, but will you attack and blame
Speaker 3: the minister? And I said no, because I know a
Speaker 3: minister gets thousands of letters and she can't be held
Speaker 3: personally responsible for what has happened here. I just don't
Speaker 3: think that's right. And they said, well, that's not really
Speaker 3: what we're after, so they didn't interview me at all,
Speaker 3: and so it was really it was just a really
Speaker 3: stark example for me where if I was going to
Speaker 3: engage in a particular solo politics, which for me was
Speaker 3: you know, it was about about the issues, not about
Speaker 3: the personalities, not just blaming another politician every turn, but
Speaker 3: trying to solve problems that that might mean, no, I'm
Speaker 3: not that successful. And I decided I was okay with that,
Speaker 3: and so no, I never saw myself becoming prime minister,
Speaker 3: but I never believed that I would tick the boxes
Speaker 3: for it either. But that was something I made peace with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, speaking of prime minister, so let's fast forward
Speaker 1: to twenty seventeen. You had a life changing moment, which
Speaker 1: one there were a few that year, was very we're
Speaker 1: going to get to the first one. Okay, Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a couple down the road, the current leader of the
Speaker 1: leader party tasks you privately and says, look, I'm stepping down.
Speaker 3: I want you to taake No, he toys with it.
Speaker 3: He doesn't even say I'm stepping down. It's it's it's
Speaker 3: my it's my birthday. This is such a shallow thing
Speaker 3: to remember, but it was my birthday.
Speaker 1: And didn't even wish you.
Speaker 3: And we get our internal poll numbers and then we're
Speaker 3: in the early we're in the early twenties, and just
Speaker 3: for context, we're twenty points behind the government and the
Speaker 3: election is in seven weeks and that's that's a lot
Speaker 3: of ground to make up. And when we got that poll,
Speaker 3: I was his deputy at the time. He first I
Speaker 3: sent him a text message, you know, chin up, Andrew.
Speaker 3: Everything will be fine. You know, I saw myself as
Speaker 3: number one cheer squad. We just need to get out
Speaker 3: onto the campaign trial. And I get this message back,
Speaker 3: can you come to my office? And even then I thought, oh,
Speaker 3: he's not going to wish me heavy birthday, and so
Speaker 3: off I go to his office and he didn't say
Speaker 3: to me, I'm resigning. He said, I don't know if
Speaker 3: I can do it. And I think maybe you should
Speaker 3: do it, And that ruined the rest of my day,
Speaker 3: and I immediately went into all of the reason. Can
Speaker 3: you imagine? I thought, voters, you know, seven weeks out
Speaker 3: from an election, you've had the same leader for an
Speaker 3: entire term, and then seven weeks out, you know, up
Speaker 3: and resign and put someone else in terrible idea few guys,
Speaker 3: I didn't mean that, and so I walked away from
Speaker 3: that conversation believing I had convinced him. But then a
Speaker 3: week later he came to work and he quit, and
Speaker 3: then he nominated me, And so that was that.
Speaker 1: That was the shock and what was going through your
Speaker 1: mind because you know so much of your stories like
Speaker 1: I want person who doesn't want to be prime minister
Speaker 1: to be prime minister, right, that's kind of like the
Speaker 1: psychology around it, like we want someone who is in
Speaker 1: it for not to quote the Bachelor, but for the
Speaker 1: right reasons, right, And so I feel like you were
Speaker 1: in it for the right reasons because you really didn't
Speaker 1: want this job. You did not want him to resign. No,
Speaker 1: And so was it again that sense of duty that
Speaker 1: propels you forward.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I talk a lot about imposter syndrome
Speaker 3: and a confidence gap, and naturally the question comes, well,
Speaker 3: if you experience those things, how do you find yourself
Speaker 3: in the position of becoming a member of Parliament, which
Speaker 3: is a fair question, and then becoming Prime Minister, which
Speaker 3: is a very fair question. And the answer I'd always
Speaker 3: give is that the one thing that I would find
Speaker 3: would overtake any self doubt I had was the strength
Speaker 3: and pull of that sense of responsibility, the thing that
Speaker 3: I've had since I was a that if someone needs you,
Speaker 3: or asks you, or really calls upon you, then you
Speaker 3: have a duty to steff up in that moment, even
Speaker 3: if it means doing something that absolutely terrifies you. And
Speaker 3: so I remember very quickly because if I could give
Speaker 3: you a very brief timeline of this traumatic set of events.
Speaker 3: You know, my boss, you know, there'd been some speculation
Speaker 3: because he mused in that week that he had that
Speaker 3: conversation with me. He mused in the media, they'd asked him,
Speaker 3: your POB wasn't really bad. Have you ever thought about resigning?
Speaker 3: And he was such an honest man he said yes.
Speaker 3: And in politics, the moment you voice any doubt, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's you know, the just they come for you, and
Speaker 3: they came for him. So then a week of speculation
Speaker 3: about whether he would stick around started. But I believed
Speaker 3: he was going to stay, and in fact, he got
Speaker 3: off the plane that Tuesday morning and walked through the airport.
Speaker 3: I heard him on the radio. A journalist asked him,
Speaker 3: what are you doing, and he said, I'm staying and
Speaker 3: I thought phoo, And then I got a phone call
Speaker 3: to say, no, he's not. And so within two hours roughly,
Speaker 3: I was down in front of a podium giving my
Speaker 3: first statement as the new leader of the Labor Party
Speaker 3: and candidate to be Prime minister. And so I did
Speaker 3: not do that little hoopy noise, but I do remember thinking, right,
Speaker 3: you know, there had been a period over that week
Speaker 3: where I just allowed myself to think, what if he
Speaker 3: does this, water are you going to do? And so
Speaker 3: the moment he did, I just had to switch. There
Speaker 3: was no room for self doubt, there was too indulgent.
Speaker 3: It just now had to switch to doing the job.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite reflections is that because you had
Speaker 1: such a short time frame, right you were seven weeks
Speaker 1: out from the general election, say that you did not
Speaker 1: have time to respond to with the polling sadder with
Speaker 1: the survey satter with the focus group sadder. But how
Speaker 1: it is you ought to be right? You say, like
Speaker 1: you had no choice but to just be yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's no time for any of that kind
Speaker 1: of prep.
Speaker 3: And I'd seen that happened to leaders before, really great
Speaker 3: people who really knew who they were when they came
Speaker 3: into the job. But then there was a push in
Speaker 3: the pull of h you know, branding yourself in a
Speaker 3: particular way. I did benefit from having been in politics
Speaker 3: for a while, but even if you've been in for
Speaker 3: nine years. I think at the time that I became leader,
Speaker 3: like my prefood prime minister numbers were like eight percent,
Speaker 3: So that was probably both a name recognition issue and
Speaker 3: a popularity issue. But with seven weeks you've just got
Speaker 3: to crack on. And I think if anyone had come
Speaker 3: to me and said, right, well, you need to buy
Speaker 3: a suit for starters, I'm not sure I would have
Speaker 3: to be honest. I think I was pretty Did they
Speaker 3: point to do it on my own tomb? Yeah?
Speaker 1: No pants suits?
Speaker 3: I no, I didn't buy. Here I am now in
Speaker 3: my full blown corridor suit. I know I didn't. For
Speaker 3: a long time, I didn't own I didn't own a
Speaker 3: suit when I was in politics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, backstage she was asking me should do the heels
Speaker 1: or the flats, and I was like, you're not prime
Speaker 1: minister anymore. Where the flats you disjuoy yourself. You had
Speaker 1: years to wear heels. Okay, you're going to enjoy your feet.
Speaker 1: Are going to be healthy tonight, girl.
Speaker 3: So okay.
Speaker 1: So then, because you alluded to how absolutely bonkers twenties,
Speaker 1: I've been told not to swear because of public radio.
Speaker 1: So bonkers is going to be my new worth? Absolutely
Speaker 1: bonkers twenty seventeen was well, all of this was going
Speaker 1: on in your personal life. You and your husband were
Speaker 1: navigating fertility challenges, right, and you'd been open with the
Speaker 1: public about your desire to one day become a mom,
Speaker 1: which sort of made it fair game for people to
Speaker 1: ask you about it.
Speaker 3: And I had not been open about fertility chilling, yes.
Speaker 1: Just about wanting to be a Mom's about yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Asked about whether I wanted to be a mom. I figured,
Speaker 3: I figured there's only so much information you should but yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 1: So so it was kind of fair game to you know,
Speaker 1: it was at least a topic they could ask about
Speaker 1: because you had made it made no secret of the
Speaker 1: fact you'd like to be a mom. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've watched some of these YouTube clips of reporters, journalists,
Speaker 1: you know, asking pretty aggressive questions, making bold proclamations about
Speaker 1: what women, you know, ought to tell employers, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So tell me first of all what kinds
Speaker 1: of questions you received, and then what your response was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that was you know, that was one
Speaker 3: of the realities of being in public life is these
Speaker 3: always these things going on behind the scenes that you're
Speaker 3: never really talking about. Yeah, And so I remember the
Speaker 3: day after I became lead of the Labor Party, I
Speaker 3: was doing a big round of media and I was
Speaker 3: sitting in the green room ready to do an interview,
Speaker 3: and the day before someone had asked me about my intentions.
Speaker 3: You know, what's going to happen now you wanted to
Speaker 3: be mother and now you're the leader of the Labor Party,
Speaker 3: And I kind of scooted around the question. But in
Speaker 3: this morning TV show they started having a conversation about
Speaker 3: whether or not it was okay to ask me that question,
Speaker 3: and one of the broadcasters on the panel had said, well,
Speaker 3: I think it should be okay to ask any woman
Speaker 3: that question when you employ them. And I was in
Speaker 3: the green room and I still remember that came through
Speaker 3: on the television screen in the corner, spinning around my
Speaker 3: chair and just becoming just ful of rage and brand
Speaker 3: my presecretary, who was there to kind of introduce me
Speaker 3: to New Zealand is the potential new prime minister. I
Speaker 3: could see him his face he just went white and
Speaker 3: he just swent no, no no, And I said, Mike, no,
Speaker 3: no no. And next thing we know, I'm on the
Speaker 3: stair and I didn't have a plan. I didn't know
Speaker 3: quite what I was going to do at this point.
Speaker 3: They brought me and I sat down and then went
Speaker 3: straight on air and they introduced this question and I said, look,
Speaker 3: you can ask me that question because I have chosen
Speaker 3: to put that conversation on the table, but.
Speaker 1: You and out came the yeah you did the finger.
Speaker 3: I just you know, I think what happened was in
Speaker 3: that moment all of the times where anyone had ever
Speaker 3: asked me a question that was gender, that anyone asked
Speaker 3: me about my relationships or my clothing, or portrayed me
Speaker 3: in a cartoon as a ring girl in a bikini
Speaker 3: with stilettos or implied I was, you know, tokenistic all
Speaker 3: of those times when I'd never put speck on him
Speaker 3: because I didn't want to be seen as humulus or
Speaker 3: I didn't want to be just seen as someone who
Speaker 3: is calling themselves a victim because they are a woman.
Speaker 3: All those times where I did nothing suddenly turned into
Speaker 3: that you and I really went him. I really went
Speaker 3: him in that moment on behalf of all women.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I encourage all you why he was
Speaker 1: going to cry. I encourage you all to fy this
Speaker 1: clip on YouTube. I may or may have not watched
Speaker 1: it many times. It's deeply, deeply gratifying.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Dame Jacinda Ardern, new Zealand's former Prime minister.
Speaker 2: This is City Arts and Lectures.
Speaker 1: The anecdote you just shared, I think is reflective of
Speaker 1: a broader trait that you have, which is you had
Speaker 1: a kind of say it like it is throughout and
Speaker 1: even before you became prime minister, you had this attitude.
Speaker 1: I mean there was a press conference where your credibility
Speaker 1: was being questioned right, people were saying or could you
Speaker 1: actually credibly lead you know in New Zealand? And then
Speaker 1: you're like yeah, dude, they wouldn't put my name. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been nominated if this weren't the case. And
Speaker 1: then they said, well, you've kind of made no secret
Speaker 1: of the fact that you don't even really want the job.
Speaker 1: And your response is awesome. You're like, I'm clearly taking
Speaker 1: on like the worst job right now, you know, how
Speaker 1: could you not? And to just hear someone say it
Speaker 1: so matter of factly it was really impressive.
Speaker 3: And that I remember walking down to the press conference,
Speaker 3: I mean and walking down and just knowing this is
Speaker 3: make l Brake, that my first press conference was a
Speaker 3: test and if I did not demonstrate absolute confidence in
Speaker 3: my ability to do that job, and I knew what
Speaker 3: would come at me. I was thirty seven. I was
Speaker 3: thirty seven years old, you know, on the grand scheme
Speaker 3: of you know, political years, you know, which kind of
Speaker 3: like dog years. I was still accept the reverse. I
Speaker 3: was still quite young to be taking on a role
Speaker 3: like that, and.
Speaker 1: Having started in politics at fourteen, I mean, really were
Speaker 1: a veteran.
Speaker 3: But what I will say is though, as I walk down,
Speaker 3: and this this is a gift. As I walked down,
Speaker 3: I did not think that one of the things I
Speaker 3: would have to defend was that I was a woman,
Speaker 3: and I did not think that because New Zealand had
Speaker 3: elected and had had two previous female prime ministers, and
Speaker 3: so that was I did not feel like burden.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, what just in that moment though, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to like, what gave you the courage to say,
Speaker 1: I'm clearly taking on like the worst of in politics?
Speaker 3: And I always feel like I have to say it
Speaker 3: was I was taking on the leader of the opposition,
Speaker 3: which is the worst of being a prime minister is amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: leader of the opposition is terrible. Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 3: think for me, I thinkrobably the most important point that
Speaker 3: I was trying to make in that moment was that,
Speaker 3: you know, for all of their questioning why you know,
Speaker 3: are you capable of doing this? Can you do this?
Speaker 3: I got the same question about five different ways, and
Speaker 3: in the end I thought, well, I might put it
Speaker 3: back to them. So yes, I gave that answer, but
Speaker 3: I also just said to them, would you like to
Speaker 3: tell me why I can't do this? Because after a
Speaker 3: while I thought this one's probably inching towards a question
Speaker 3: that's about, you know, whether I've had enough experience and
Speaker 3: I've been in politics longer than the last Prime minister
Speaker 3: who had done the job before bil English, yet my
Speaker 3: youth I could see playing out in that line of questioning.
Speaker 3: But there was the only way I was going to
Speaker 3: be able to convince anyone was by proving it. I
Speaker 3: felt that from that moment, and so everything became a
Speaker 3: test and approved. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the reason I asked is I feel like
Speaker 1: sometimes we put poly Tiians through these unfair purity tests
Speaker 1: where you know, they need to take on these jobs
Speaker 1: and they need to love every minute of it and
Speaker 1: the need to relish. But I just like that you
Speaker 1: just basically said, this is really hard, but I feel
Speaker 1: a sense of duty to do it. That's why I'm
Speaker 1: doing it right. That to me, that is actually the
Speaker 1: purest set of intentions. Okay, So a little bit of
Speaker 1: time passes, several weeks and a few days before the
Speaker 1: results of the general election are going to be announced.
Speaker 1: You are in the bathroom of your friend's house. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you're staring down at a pregnancy stick. Yes, because
Speaker 1: you don't have enough on your plate. Yeah, So can
Speaker 1: you just tell me about that totally?
Speaker 3: I really thought about this as well, but I thought,
Speaker 3: you know, where do I start this? Where do I
Speaker 3: start the story? And I thought the first line feels
Speaker 3: really important? Are you really say a lot with the
Speaker 3: first line? It was a standard bathroom? So what is
Speaker 3: the most New Zealand way to kind of bring this
Speaker 3: moment that actually was really significant down into this really
Speaker 3: simple thing. It was a bathroom in Tower And that
Speaker 3: little extra laugh you got was a New Zealander who
Speaker 3: knows where Tower is and how unremarkable it can be. So,
Speaker 3: you know, elections are a funny thing in New Zealand.
Speaker 3: It's but like the German system, you don't always know
Speaker 3: the outcome on election night, and that was the case
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen. So we've done really well, we'd lifted
Speaker 3: our vote, but it wasn't clear cut on the night.
Speaker 3: It was going to come down to the decision that
Speaker 3: one minor party made, and so we went into a
Speaker 3: period of negotiations which we're going to take about two weeks,
Speaker 3: and I had no idea which way they were going,
Speaker 3: no idea, And you can imagine the intensity of you
Speaker 3: and a couple of colleagues being in a room across
Speaker 3: the way from the person who's going to decide whether
Speaker 3: you are going to become Prime minister. And I didn't
Speaker 3: know this person well. He was a season politician, but
Speaker 3: during the election campaign he had called me a hamburger
Speaker 3: without the meat patty, which I assumed was not a compliment.
Speaker 4: You know what, I'm a vegetarian as a vegetarian, and
Speaker 4: I okay, And so I just kept thinking, you know what,
Speaker 4: in these circumstances, am I You know, how do I
Speaker 4: conduct these negotiations? You know?
Speaker 3: I even remember bringing my friends famous jingl over it
Speaker 3: like it's some kind of bakery bribery or something. But
Speaker 3: we are about three days out from when we expect
Speaker 3: these talks or conclude, and I just hadn't been feeling myself.
Speaker 3: I just hadn't and I assumed it was exhaustion and serious.
Speaker 3: But my friend worked in healthcare, and she assumed something
Speaker 3: completely different. Now, because I'd had, you know, failed fertility
Speaker 3: tripment and been told that I would not conceive naturally,
Speaker 3: I thought that my view was completely rational, that I
Speaker 3: was just tired. But no, in the middle of those negotiations,
Speaker 3: I found out that I was pregnant, which was really
Speaker 3: bad timing and a lot And I remember, I remember
Speaker 3: so distinctly, as I sat on that, you know, on
Speaker 3: the lid of that toilet, thinking you could not write
Speaker 3: about this, and so I did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was it like sharing the news with your
Speaker 1: husband Clark?
Speaker 3: So yeah, so many emotions, as you can imagine. He
Speaker 3: was off filming. So he's a broadcaster and he had
Speaker 3: a phishing show, which is you know, that's if we
Speaker 3: call it in New Zealand that say, it's pretty tinny
Speaker 3: when you managed to turn your favorite pastime into work.
Speaker 3: So he would go away on ten day long fishing trips,
Speaker 3: film them, put them on TV and call it a job.
Speaker 3: So he was in Australia all of this leadership stuff
Speaker 3: kicked off, and in fact, when I became nominated to
Speaker 3: be leader of the Labor Party, he came up from
Speaker 3: a free dive and the guy in the boat his Aussie.
Speaker 3: Better call your missus mate, she's she's got a promotion.
Speaker 3: I think we He did not find out through the
Speaker 3: news that I was pregnant. I called him. I called
Speaker 3: him and yeah, I told him over FaceTime that what
Speaker 3: we all do? Yeah wow, yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right. So then a few days later, the
Speaker 1: results of the election election, what is it? What is
Speaker 1: that like?
Speaker 3: Well, obviously a spoiler alert, I've become Prime Minister. You know,
Speaker 3: it's something that moment I found out on the same
Speaker 3: time everyone else did when it was announced live on
Speaker 3: the six o'clock news. He broke into the news hour,
Speaker 3: the leader of the party, the small party, and he
Speaker 3: announced his decision. So, yeah, I watched it on the
Speaker 3: news and Clark Clark filmed it, and I'm so glad
Speaker 3: he did because every time it's now part of a
Speaker 3: documentary that has been made, and every time I watched
Speaker 3: that scene, I'm taken right back there to all those emotions,
Speaker 3: which was elation and then just a second later, just
Speaker 3: the weight of it on my shoulders straight away. Yeah, instant.
Speaker 1: There's this very sweet intimate moment where so in the
Speaker 1: documentary Prime Minister, her husband kind of follows her around
Speaker 1: the camquorder type thing and she's constantly resisting in the
Speaker 1: videos int she's like, yeah, that's not happening right now.
Speaker 1: But in one moment, he has a video in front
Speaker 1: of you and you're like, so, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: Prime Minister and I'm pregnant.
Speaker 3: Pregnant because it was only obviously three of us that
Speaker 3: knew it. That pay Yeah, my friend Julia whose bathroom
Speaker 3: I found myself.
Speaker 1: And it was a pretty standard back It was a
Speaker 1: standard bick yeah about it, and Clark and I needed
Speaker 1: to keep it that way, and in part because I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, I was thirty seven.
Speaker 3: I was technically a geriatric pregnancy, that's what they call it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you know, I was in a pretty stressful situation
Speaker 3: and I just didn't know whether or not I would
Speaker 3: stay pregnant. So for twenty weeks, those first weeks of
Speaker 3: being Prime Minister, through some very aggressive morning sickness. Oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, I hid it. Yeah I heard that I
Speaker 3: was pregnant.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow. I of course want to talk about your
Speaker 1: big policy achievements, but I want to first start by
Speaker 1: talking about your very unique leadership style. Kind of the
Speaker 1: ethos of your leadership is, you know, kindness, empathy, deep listening,
Speaker 1: just like your dad, the policeman did. You almost ran
Speaker 1: on that platform right like your Highness is going to
Speaker 1: be what I do. And it shouldn't have been such
Speaker 1: a bold decision, but it was to kind of embody
Speaker 1: that and to say, and especially to be a woman
Speaker 1: who is being kind and feeling like, okay, that's not
Speaker 1: going to cut against my competence, which is typically the
Speaker 1: fear right that we had.
Speaker 3: I remember in that first presse conference thinking, I want
Speaker 3: to break away from the negative, dogmatic space that you
Speaker 3: end up and as an opposition politician, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know if this is a saying here, but you
Speaker 3: end up you know, you're backing at every passing car.
Speaker 3: You know, just everything is negative. And so I came
Speaker 3: out and said, we are going to run a campaign
Speaker 3: that is wilentlessly positive. But I also wanted to frame
Speaker 3: how we did politics. And I think this I underestimated.
Speaker 3: It matters enormously what you do when you're in politics,
Speaker 3: but it actually also matters how you do it, and
Speaker 3: how you conduct yourself. Is the message that you send
Speaker 3: around where your priorities are. Yeah. So I had seen
Speaker 3: a style of politics that felt to me that didn't
Speaker 3: feel like it had people at the center, and people
Speaker 3: wouldn't feel like it watching them. So the mantra of kindness, yes,
Speaker 3: policy what we were going to do. But actually I
Speaker 3: wasn't going to attack another politician's personal life or someone personally.
Speaker 3: I said to our MPs, and you're not going to either, Well,
Speaker 3: we're in office, we're going to try and raise the bar. Now,
Speaker 3: I couldn't guarantee it would stay raised, but I knew
Speaker 3: while I was there that was what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, yeah, so let's talk about COVID, right, really,
Speaker 1: we have a vote on that. One of the pieces
Speaker 1: of feedback I got from the audience in advance because
Speaker 1: they just haven't talked about the pandemic enough, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, that's been one of those topics that we
Speaker 1: haven't explored. So you were dealing with so much imperfect information, right, So,
Speaker 1: as someone who wants to make the right decision, is
Speaker 1: trying to weigh pros and cons, is highly empathetic, doesn't
Speaker 1: want to cause harm, how do you even begin to
Speaker 1: craft a response? And I'm talking at the first the
Speaker 1: first outbreak, right, yeah, what is the decision making apparatus
Speaker 1: you even use?
Speaker 3: I mean, the difficult thing was the speed, the speed
Speaker 3: which this was coming at us. You know, I remember
Speaker 3: reading trying to track, even through BBC articles, what was
Speaker 3: happening in Wuhan. You know, we were getting our own information,
Speaker 3: but I read as much international news as I could,
Speaker 3: as much science as I could, to try and understand,
Speaker 3: to understand what we were dealing with. COVID came to
Speaker 3: us later, though, it came to us in February, the
Speaker 3: twenty eighth of February of twenty twenty, so the rest
Speaker 3: of the world was already feeling the effects and it initially, Remember,
Speaker 3: everyone was flattening the curve, that idea that we could
Speaker 3: control it, that it might come in, but you're trying
Speaker 3: to just keep your lumbers low enough that you can
Speaker 3: keep your hospitals sustaining, meeting the demand. And that was
Speaker 3: everyone's grand, grand plan. And then we watched is that
Speaker 3: our value showed us how infectious this illness was. And
Speaker 3: I still remember and I wrote about it because it's
Speaker 3: so stark in my mind. My chief science advisor coming
Speaker 3: in to see me in March and just sliding across
Speaker 3: to me a graph that showed me that we wouldn't
Speaker 3: be able to flatten the curve and if we tried,
Speaker 3: tens of thousands of people would die. And so the
Speaker 3: calculation was very simple for me and very simple for
Speaker 3: all of us that you know, So really in politics
Speaker 3: do you draw a direct line between your decision making
Speaker 3: and someone's mortality, But that was one of them. And
Speaker 3: so that told us that we had to try something
Speaker 3: else and if we failed, we would just simply end
Speaker 3: up where everyone else was already. We had the gift
Speaker 3: of time. We needed to use it. And that was
Speaker 3: how we came to an elimination strategy, simply because I
Speaker 3: didn't want the equivalent of, you know, the casualties of
Speaker 3: a world war for that generation of New Zealanders. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you won re election in the middle of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: New Zealand had some of the lowest cases of COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen thanks to border controls and social distancing. As more
Speaker 1: various emerge and lockdowns continue, and of course public sentiment
Speaker 1: changed and frustration grew. Frustration grew worldwide with all of
Speaker 1: the variants, of course, but there were these This is
Speaker 1: the part of the documentary where you know, I, as
Speaker 1: a viewer, just got the most emotional watching the protests
Speaker 1: against lockdowns and vaccine woarves mandays in front of the parliament.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, lockdowns were reminiscent of January sixth. It's interesting lockdowns
Speaker 1: weren't in use when it happened, and we use them sporadically,
Speaker 1: so we'd a situation news on we didn't have COVID,
Speaker 1: so when a COVID case came in, we would try
Speaker 1: and isolate, you know, what had happened.
Speaker 3: And who might have been in contact with it, so
Speaker 3: that the rest of the country could keep going about
Speaker 3: their lives. But we did have a period that was
Speaker 3: a bit more prolonged for our major city. But by
Speaker 3: the time we had that protest, we were done with them.
Speaker 3: We'd reached ninety percent vaccination. We had required healthcare, education,
Speaker 3: and border workers to be vaccinated, though, and there were
Speaker 3: people who just disagreed with mandates. Stand why that's debated.
Speaker 3: It is a really significant decision to make. But we
Speaker 3: had an occupation that became violent. It lasted several weeks.
Speaker 3: It was at the same time as the blockade in Canada,
Speaker 3: and it was unlike anything I'd seen in New Zealand.
Speaker 3: They hung a noose up on the four Court of
Speaker 3: Parliament that was intended for me, and I remember as
Speaker 3: I looked out on it, thinking and yet all I
Speaker 3: ever wanted to do was just keep people safe, you know,
Speaker 3: save people's lives. But there was a part of me
Speaker 3: that actually recognized that that's what they thought they were
Speaker 3: doing too. They thought vaccines took lives, many of them
Speaker 3: not all, but many, and so even then I could
Speaker 3: see there was some common ground, as much as we
Speaker 3: couldn't talk to each other about it because the disinformation
Speaker 3: was so entrenched. And one reflection I have in this
Speaker 3: environment that we're in now is that one of the
Speaker 3: big challenges we have is our ability to still converse
Speaker 3: and have a starting point in a healthy democracy of
Speaker 3: believing in the same facts as that starting point, identifying
Speaker 3: the same problems. We now are talking past each other
Speaker 3: because of the information environment we're in. Social media did
Speaker 3: not start the problem, but they have a big role
Speaker 3: to play. I believe they are not just postmen. They
Speaker 3: are publishers. And where the publisher comes responsibility. So all
Speaker 3: absolutely as governments, we need to wear the consequences of
Speaker 3: our decisions. I just think every player on the field
Speaker 3: needs to take responsibility for the roles they've.
Speaker 1: Played to Another challenging period was in March of twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: there is a terrorist attack on masked in Christchurch in
Speaker 1: eastern New Zealand. Fifty one people were killed. It was
Speaker 1: the deadliest mass shooting in New Zealand's history, and within
Speaker 1: weeks you were able to change the country's gun loss.
Speaker 1: We had not done that in this country, despite elementary
Speaker 1: school kids being brutally murdered. So how did you do that?
Speaker 1: Do you tell?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean March fifteen, you know, was one of the
Speaker 3: most devastating experiences of my life and for New Zealand,
Speaker 3: I think it will remain just one of the darkest
Speaker 3: periods in our history. And for those who might want
Speaker 3: a little bit more context, a white supremacist from Australia
Speaker 3: came to New Zealand because he saw us as too
Speaker 3: inclusive and too multicultural, and so he legally obtained several
Speaker 3: Ar fifteen's and he targeted Friday prayers to maximize the
Speaker 3: number of victims, and he took the lives of fifty
Speaker 3: one members of our Muslim community, and he broadcast it.
Speaker 3: He live streamed it for seventeen minutes on Facebook before
Speaker 3: it was before it was pulled down. You know, I
Speaker 3: remember going into a briefing, you know, once I finally
Speaker 3: managed to get I was in New Plymouth when it happened.
Speaker 3: Once I finally managed to get to Wellington and into
Speaker 3: a briefing. As I walked into the room, one of
Speaker 3: the heads of my department said, Prime Minister, this will
Speaker 3: define you remember thinking he's probably right, but I just
Speaker 3: can't think about that right now. Right now, I just
Speaker 3: have to be whateveryone needs me to be in this heavy, dark,
Speaker 3: difficult moment. And one of the things I grappled with
Speaker 3: at that time was, you know, not the decision to
Speaker 3: go to christ Church, not the decision to call them
Speaker 3: a terrorists because that was clear cut, Not the decision
Speaker 3: to cover my head because that felt just like the
Speaker 3: simple respectful thing to do in that moment. One of
Speaker 3: the things I grappled with was whether or not I
Speaker 3: was whether it would be okay if I wasn't able
Speaker 3: to hold back my tears. And I, you know, just
Speaker 3: internally grappled with that, didn't say much about it out loud,
Speaker 3: but quietly worried, that's still so early on in my premiership,
Speaker 3: that if I came to a moment where I was
Speaker 3: just simply overcome, would it appear that I didn't have
Speaker 3: the strength to carry New Zealand through this difficult time.
Speaker 3: Would I be making it about me when it was
Speaker 3: about the Muslim community. In the end, though, there's almost
Speaker 3: actually nothing you can do about it, and maybe the
Speaker 3: moment of being human, maybe that builds a bit of
Speaker 3: trust and confidence because people are reminded that they're not
Speaker 3: being governed by a robot. There's a human behind the
Speaker 3: job as well, And then you're not a narcissist either,
Speaker 3: You're just a humane But here is an important lesson
Speaker 3: I think as well, though, and empathetic leadership. It is
Speaker 3: not just simply the idea of bringing your authentic self
Speaker 3: and your emotions and whatever to the job. Empathy is
Speaker 3: nothing without action. It would have been pure performative if
Speaker 3: it was just an expression of empathy. Empathy requires action,
Speaker 3: and that was why we banned military style semi automatic
Speaker 3: with happens at Amazing.
Speaker 1: Your sense of humor has been on display tonight. How
Speaker 1: did you maintain your sense of humor during such a
Speaker 1: tough post?
Speaker 3: You know, you've heard tonight about COVID, and you've heard
Speaker 3: it heard about a horrific domestic terror attack, and you've
Speaker 3: heard about the difficult things that cut and thrust of politics.
Speaker 3: But there is real joy in it as well. You know,
Speaker 3: I cannot imagine a job where you have the privilege
Speaker 3: of both seeing an individual who might be struggling with
Speaker 3: an issue, or an entire community or group of people,
Speaker 3: and you have it within your power to do something
Speaker 3: about that. Yeah, there are so few jobs where you
Speaker 3: have that opportunity, and so everything else that happens around
Speaker 3: the edges is in a way the politics. The real
Speaker 3: meaning is that the job that you're doing day to day,
Speaker 3: and there is joy in that, and I wish that
Speaker 3: people got to see more of that. It's what sustained
Speaker 3: me through fifteen years in politics, and it's the reason
Speaker 3: why when people say to me, would you ever if
Speaker 3: your daughter came to and said I want to go
Speaker 3: to politics, That is the reason I would support her.
Speaker 3: There is joy in politics too. We should talk about that.
Speaker 3: We should talk about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow, many people were surprised when you decided to step
Speaker 1: down as Prime minister. Can you tell us a bit
Speaker 1: more about that decision?
Speaker 3: Do you know one of those things where I think
Speaker 3: people always look for the one thing which is so understandable,
Speaker 3: you know, the tidy little tied up with the bow,
Speaker 3: the reason why you left. But for me, it was
Speaker 3: a lot of things, and the easiest way I can
Speaker 3: explain it is that all of the things I valued
Speaker 3: about leadership, the things that I thought were important, you know, curiosity,
Speaker 3: not being defensive, you know, maintaining that open mind and
Speaker 3: the importance of having enough in reserve when things go array.
Speaker 3: I could feel those depleting and so I really added
Speaker 3: to question whether or not that meant that it was
Speaker 3: time to go. The thing I struggled with is I
Speaker 3: felt a responsibility to stay, because when you're worried about
Speaker 3: whether will you know people are telling you you have
Speaker 3: to fight in the next election, and so that was
Speaker 3: on my mind. The small group of people I could
Speaker 3: tell that I was thinking about it, my chief of staff,
Speaker 3: my deputy Prime Minister, and my now husband. None of
Speaker 3: them supported me to leave, and so it was a
Speaker 3: very lonely decision. Sure, but I'll tell you if you
Speaker 3: have ever been in a role that responsibility took you
Speaker 3: to and it's those are the hardest roles to leave.
Speaker 3: And so it was only when I thought about it
Speaker 3: through the lens of the responsibility. I had to also
Speaker 3: know when it was time to go that that was
Speaker 3: an act of responsibility as well that I allowed myself
Speaker 3: permission to leave. So that was the decision.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really love that sentiment, and you know, we
Speaker 1: forget sometimes that like staying in the job, the status quo,
Speaker 1: that is a choice itself right, So quitting feels like
Speaker 1: the decision stupping down, but it's actually a decision to
Speaker 1: also stay. And there is an opportunity cost on staying
Speaker 1: or maybe you know, cost your well being or what
Speaker 1: have you. So knowing when it's time to leave it
Speaker 1: is a huge part of Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I did not think that it would it would
Speaker 3: be such a topic of conversation, but I do think
Speaker 3: it would be great if politics came with a range
Speaker 3: of off ramps. Because the off ramps in our system
Speaker 3: I can't speak to anyone else's, but in New Zealand,
Speaker 3: you basically have to lose or die. Then no one quits.
Speaker 3: And I think in part there's a lot of pressure
Speaker 3: often on yesterday, but also there's an assumption that once
Speaker 3: you have power, you won't give it up. I see
Speaker 3: it differently. If you flip out the word power with responsibility,
Speaker 3: then there will eventually be a time that you hand
Speaker 3: that better and over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have spent the last two years living in America.
Speaker 1: Just sinda, we don't deserve you here, but thank you
Speaker 1: for coming anyway. You've been a fellow at Harvard. You've
Speaker 1: actually built this like young group of empathetic leaders, you're
Speaker 1: thinking about tech and AI, and just tell me a
Speaker 1: little bit about what your time has been like. You're
Speaker 1: working with young people and inspiring them and trying to
Speaker 1: renew their commitment to pop up service.
Speaker 3: Being here has been a gift. It's been a gift
Speaker 3: for lots of reasons, in part because you don't actually
Speaker 3: have a lot of time to think and learn when
Speaker 3: you're a leader, and just the time to reflect has
Speaker 3: been really important and learn about. You know, if I
Speaker 3: am in the privileged position of imparting to others some
Speaker 3: lessons from leadership, how can I, you know, put a
Speaker 3: put a bit more theory behind that as well. I
Speaker 3: now run a fellowship on empathetic leadership. I started it
Speaker 3: last year and we started with Europe after the EU elections,
Speaker 3: and we had fourteen existing politicians, many of them quite senior,
Speaker 3: all of them who believe in empathetic leadership, but not
Speaker 3: all of them who believe they could be successful and
Speaker 3: do it. And I have found such joy in their
Speaker 3: work because it reminded me that there are good people
Speaker 3: out there who now deserve a network of support around them,
Speaker 3: and if voters are given a chance to vote for them,
Speaker 3: we'll find their success too, and so that is the
Speaker 3: kind of thing that I'm now spending my time on
Speaker 3: and being able to have the space to do it
Speaker 3: out of here, out of the US has been a gift.
Speaker 3: So it's been a great place to be and great
Speaker 3: people to be amongst.
Speaker 1: So thank you, of course, so I can take credit
Speaker 1: for You're so welcome.
Speaker 3: So in New Zealand we do that. If you come
Speaker 3: to New Zealand, consider that we are literally hosting you.
Speaker 3: And so when you say your country is so beautiful,
Speaker 3: we'll say as if we designed it ourselves. Thank you,
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Well. Unfortunately that is all the time we have for tonight,
Speaker 1: but I want to extend so much gratitude. I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful to you for having joined all of us tonight.
Speaker 1: This has been such a wonderful, dynamic, warm audience. And yes,
Speaker 1: please come back again soon to thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank You've been listening to Dame Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's
Speaker 2: former Prime Minister, in conversation with doctor Maya Shanker. This
Speaker 2: program was recorded at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San
Speaker 2: Francisco on June ninth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: These broadcasts are produced by.
Speaker 2: City Arts and Lectures inciation with KQED Public Radio San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Kate Goldstein Brier and Holly Mulder Wallin.
Speaker 2: Alexandra Blackman is Director of Design and Communications. Assistants provided
Speaker 2: by Mark Spirou Sidney Goldstein, Technical director Stephen Eckert. Our
Speaker 2: post production director is Nina Thorson. The recording engineer is
Speaker 2: Jane Heaven. Theme music composed and performed by Pat Gleeson.
Speaker 2: City Arts and Lectures founding producer is Sidney Goldstein. City
Speaker 2: Arts and Lectures programs are supported by grants for the
Speaker 2: Arts of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund. Additional funding
Speaker 2: provided by the Bernard Oscher Foundation, Barry Trout and the
Speaker 2: Friends of City Arts and Lectures. Support for recording and
Speaker 2: post production of City Arts and Lectures is provided by
Speaker 2: Robert Mahler Anderson and Nikola Miner.
Speaker 1: To attend a live.
Speaker 2: Program or for a list of up coming guests, visit
Speaker 2: our website at Cityarts dot net. That's Cityarts dot net.