Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hugs her fiancee Clark Gayford after announcing her resignation. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Tough to run a country like a family
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern surprised the country when she announced her resignation on Thursday.Photo / Warren Buckland
Many Kiwis will be unhappy at the resignation of our PM, Jacinda Ardern.
She certainly was a great example as a fine MP and stateswoman, leading by example.
However, her accent on kindness and unity has its limits when leading a country of 5 million, where in many cases the philosophy of the party appears to have been mixed with the unity of the family and kindness to each other. Sadly, the country cannot be governed effectively as just one big family where we each care for and provide financially for each other. To do so is to treat its citizens as infantile and incapable of any maturity, which of course leads to many not trying to go the extra mile or even considering a better future for themselves.
We have seen this in recent moves by Labour to provide a Three Waters scheme and a single media unit for radio and TV. This would lead to a disincentive for enterprise and the state being in charge of most of our major assets. Surely, this is a disincentive for change by those who can really prove themselves and socialism on a grand scale.
Is this what the country really needs or even thinks that it wants?
Bruce Woodley, Birkenhead, Auckland
Jacinda amazing — can next PM do better?
Overall Jacinda did an amazing job but nobody is perfect. Talk is cheap but it will be interesting to see if the new Prime Minister at the next election whether Labour or National can do any better.
Bruce Tubb Devonport
Harry’s haunting memoir
Judging by the number of factual errors in Prince Harry’s ghost-written memoir, it was also ghost edited and proofread.
Mike Wagg, Freemans Bay
Tougher fines will save lives
Glenn Forsyth is absolutely right it is “time to raise the phone fine to $1000 and 35 demerit points” (Herald on Sunday, January 15).
You see in the past few weeks I have very often seen so many people drive with a phone in their hands. So to cut the New Zealand road toll in 2023 in half we need these two urgent changes.
1. Bring back a specialist traffic police force that was tragically destroyed by National many years ago to save money.
2. Immediately lift the paltry $150 fine for a mobile phone in a driver’s hand to $1000, as it has been in Queensland for decades. That will save many lives in New Zealand in 2023. That is the sole reason why Queensland roads are much safer to drive on than New Zealand roads.
I totally agree with Glenn. Just do it now please. All safe drivers and their families need it absolutely.
Murray Hunter, Titirangi
Street preacher annoys
Reading Shaneel Lal’s article (Herald on Sunday, January 15) about that homophobic, misogynist street preacher who annoys people in Cuba St, reminded me of an eastern philosopher who once said: “Those who know, don’t shout, and those who shout, don’t know.”
I guess, that just about sums up this individual to a tee.
John Watkins, Greenlane
Losing moral high ground
Remember how New Zealand condemned how Julia Gillard was treated by those awful sexist Australians? Not only has New Zealand lost the smug moral high ground, it has sent an explicit message to all young women here as “Don’t you dare aspire to reach the top in whatever endeavour you had in mind”.
Elizabeth Urry, Devonport
Prebble spouts hypocrisy
It’s pretty rich Richard Prebble accusing Jacinda Ardern of abandoning the ship. He abandoned the Labour voters who had put him in parliament for many years to join the black ship Act. Earlier, he and Cabinet colleagues had betrayed the core values of the Labour Party to pursue the monetarist reforms that led on to the assault against working New Zealanders in the 1990s. Who is he to accuse Ardern of abandoning ship?
Gavin Kay, Remuera
Poisoning political debate
I think Jacinda Ardern’s resignation was the result of a cynical campaign of political character assassination. She was the prized scalp.
A leader highly respected overseas who did so much for this country was cruelly vilified by sizeable elements of the right here. It was straight out of the Trump/Bolsanaro playbook and it is polarising our political landscape the way it has in the US and Brazil.
I witnessed it when I told protesters outside the High Court that a “f*** Ardern” T-shirt was very disrespectful and received a torrent of chilling abuse in return. For the so-called Freedom and Rights Coalition and Groundswell read Tea Party and Proud Boys in America: the same polarising right wing extremism. Fanned by the more hardline conservative political commentators here it lit a fire that has poisoned reasonable political debate.
Add the extremist echo chamber sewer of social media and I fully understand our PM’s exhaustion after two terms. No NZ politician should be subjected to this.
The level of physical threats against Jacinda Ardern and her family were unprecedented for this country.
The spread-thin graciousness of the leaders of the mainstream conservative parties was a wink at the extremists. But they are playing with fire if they think they can exploit it, just as the Republican Party in the US has found to their cost.
I hope Chris Hipkins has a very thick skin; he will need it. At least he will probably be spared the outright misogyny.
Jeff Hayward, Auckland Central
Swindler’s sentence baffling
Given we constantly hear how full our jails are, after reading about serial swindler David Carroll’s sentence of home detention, I’m wondering what you have to do to be sent to jail in this country (Weekend Herald, January 21). Apparently some people deserve numerous chances despite repeated offending against their innocent victims whose trust is stolen and whose lives are turned on their heads by selfish, greedy, dishonest people like Carroll.
Fiona McAllister, Mt Maunganui
Tax cuts for all seems fair
I see the letters page is running red with claims that recent donations to the party will result in National committing the cardinal sin of giving tax cuts to that semi-mythical New Zealand tribe called “the rich”.
In reality National are planning to give tax cuts to everyone, including those who earn more than $180k per year, the “rich” who so disturb the dreams of the political left. But that seems only fair given that these are the people who already pay most of the income tax that funds the generous state benefits so many of us receive.
Important people like doctors, lawyers, TV newsreaders, senior civil servants and Members of Parliament are entitled to their fair share of a few cents in the dollar tax cut, and arguments to the contrary are just another manifestation of the politics of envy that so often bedevils New Zealand.
John Denton, Napier
Money over morals
Egg retailers have limited eggs and people are blaming the Government and regulations . This change in egg production has been ten years in the making. Production is limited and the same can be said for the thinking of the producers who have not changed, upgraded or complied to the regulations that they were told would be enacted. Once again it is money over morals.
J McCormick, Gisborne
Toilet door design flaw
Why on earth are public toilets designed with handles on the wrong side of the doors?
We enter often using a shoulder to push the door, do what is required, wash our hands as we have always done.
Now we are faced with a dilemma, to open the door by pulling on the handle. We can stand and wait for someone to open it from the other side or touch that handle and take our chances.
Why not just have the doors opening the other way or no doors? Shoulders are ok with germs.
Vince West, Milford
Extraordinary display of protest interrupted the first vote on the Treaty Principles Bill.