Reflections on Jesse Mulligan’s Interview with Jacinda Ardern on her autobiography.
World leaders say something has shifted in people over the last five years. There is talk of rising anger, radical activism, and distrust.
What is missing from that conversation is the obvious question: what happened in those five years that might explain the shift?
Covid dominated Jacinda Ardern’s time as Prime Minister. New Zealand adopted one of the most tightly controlled responses in the world — lockdowns, border closures, and vaccine mandates that affected people’s ability to work, travel, and participate in public life.
Supporters saw these measures as decisive leadership during a crisis. Critics saw something else: the state exerting unprecedented power over everyday life.
That divide has never really been acknowledged in full — let alone understood.
In the interview Jacinda says the anger directed toward her is not part of her everyday experience. That may be true from where she now sits — in international institutions and universities. But distance changes perspective. Many people who lived through that period remember it painfully, and differently. And now her move to Australia leaves some feeling that New Zealand is no longer her place.
Some ministers have suggested that misogyny explains the level of opposition she faced. Misogyny certainly exists in politics, but reducing public criticism to that single explanation risks ignoring legitimate grievances — and the many women who were also in opposition.
In a democracy, leaders become the focal point of both praise and anger. They govern the economy, public health decisions, and the use of taxpayer money. When people feel those decisions have harmed them, they respond. That is the real world.
Jacinda frames her leadership as empathy-based — a new kind of political power grounded in kindness and service.
When the conversation turns to Donald Trump, she says it goes without saying that she is not a supporter, with little more to add except that Trump represents a type of leadership that has become endemic in politics — one that draws power from force and prominence.
Jacinda speaks instead about empathy-based leadership and the importance of mentoring and uplifting others.
Yet critics point to a contradiction: where was that empathy for those who said they were harmed by vaccine mandates? Or for those who chose not to vaccinate and lost their jobs and their homes? Those that lost loved ones and couldn’t see them.
These are essential questions.
Critics also point to moments that contradicted that image: the refusal to meet protesters at Parliament, and the perception that people who reported vaccine injuries were dismissed or stigmatised rather than heard and treated. Much of this rested on the idea that vaccination would stop the spread — an assumption that later proved far more complicated.
Over time it became clear that the strongest protection was needed for the elderly and medically vulnerable, while the risk profile for children and healthy adults was very different, both for Covid and for the vaccine.
Hindsight is great, but foresight is better.
Which raises the question still sitting underneath all of this:
Where is the line between “collective protection” and individual autonomy?
The interview does not ask that question. Instead Jacinda touches on her upbringing in the Mormon church and how it shaped her sense of service. She now describes herself as agnostic, leaning more on family and friends than formal faith in God during Covid.
Yet some habits of that upbringing remain — even small ones, like the Mormon tradition of keeping months of food stored in the home. And perhaps bigger ones we come to see later, like fear distortion.
Like all institutions, faith communities contain both ideals and contradictions. Stories of paedophilia and institutional protection within the church remind us that moral authority is always more complicated than public narratives suggest.
Maia’s experience is one example — speaking up as a teenager about paedophilia within the church and finding herself ostracised from both the church and her family for telling the truth. Lies were protected.
In those moments she said:
“God was not in the room with those men. They believed they were God.”
It shows how easily the language of service and doing good for others can slide into destructive authority over them — something societies wrestle with and are uncovering everywhere.
Jacinda also recounts a childhood memory of seeing a homeless child in Murupara — a moment she says shaped her commitment to children’s wellbeing. Critics sometimes view these kinds of stories as political narrative-building, but she insists the memory is genuine and central to her story.
What becomes clear through the interview is how leadership stories are constructed. Certain experiences are highlighted; others fade into the background. What is included forms the narrative.
What is left on the edit floor will tell a different story.
The interview eventually drifts into lighter territory — the cry-laugh emoji, fan moments over Lorde, admiration for Michelle Obama, and anecdotes about Grant Robertson and hangover sausage rolls. The handing over the reins to Winston while she stepped away to have her daughter.
It all feels friendly and humanising, the kind of details that round out a public figure. But interviews often move this way. Personality softens politics. Charm fills the space where harder questions might otherwise sit.
Because the anger that emerged during the Covid years did not come from nowhere. It is deeply felt. It came directly from lived experience — economic strain, social division, and censorship.
Understanding that anger requires more than identifying it. It requires examining the conditions that produced it — and doing so with full awareness.
Jacinda believes she represents a new model of leadership: empathy over force, service over authority.
Yet declaring the government the “single source of truth,” and later mandating vaccines to fulfil their goal of total elimination — “zero Covid” — sent another message entirely:
force over empathy and authority over service.
Whether in religion, politics, or social movements, many thinkers argue the healthiest systems maintain three safeguards:
Transparency.
Accountability.
Freedom to question.
Without those, any system — sacred or secular — can and does drift toward control rather than guidance.
This must be examined if we are to build a stronger future.
You will not find that examination in her book. Instead, the book — like the interview — leaves me with more questions, not fewer. The “do gooder” she identifies with is clear in her book but the shadow side of that identity remains completely ignored. Unfortunately for her it was revealed to many others in her reign.
Full interview: Former NZ PM Dame Jacinda Ardern on her life in and out of politics | RNZ
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