WELLINGTON, New Zealand — In her final speech to New Zealand’s Parliament on Wednesday, Jacinda Ardern described in emotional terms how she’d navigated a pandemic and a mass shooting during her five-year tenure as prime minister.
She also told humorous anecdotes, such as how a European leader so admired the striking hair of Ardern’s chief-of-staff that he fluffed it like a hairdresser — which she joked had helped secure a free-trade deal — and how her mother once sent her an uplifting, if somewhat grandiose, message: “Remember, even Jesus had people who didn’t like him.” On a more serious note, she urged lawmakers to take the politics out of climate change.
“There will always be policy differences,” Ardern said during her valedictory address, wearing a traditional Maori cloak called a korowai. “But beneath that, we have what we need to make the progress we must.” When Ardern finished speaking after about 35 minutes, she she was greeted with a standing ovation by lawmakers from across the political spectrum and rousing renditions of several Indigenous Maori songs.
A global icon of the left and an inspiration to women around the world, Ardern in January stepped down as prime minister, saying, “I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It is that simple.” But she stayed on as a lawmaker until April to avoid triggering a special election ahead of the nation’s general elections in October.
Later this month, Ardern will begin a new, unpaid role combating online extremism as Special Envoy for the Christchurch Call. It’s an initiative she started with French President Emmanuel Macron in May 2019, two months after a white supremacist gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch.
Ardern became just the second elected world leader to give birth while holding office after she had daughter Neve in 2018.