PM Jacinda Ardern touches down at Pacific Island Forum. Video / Jason Walls
Australian radio shock jock Alan Jones has lashed out at Jacinda Ardern - calling her a "complete clown" and a "lightweight Prime Minister".
"I just wonder whether Scott Morrison is going to be fully briefed to shove a sock down her throat," he said on Sydney radio station 2GB.
Jones and other Aussies earlier slammed Ardern over pointed comments aimed at Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison over climate change, claiming she had a "cargo cult mentality".
Ardern and Morrison both landed in Tuvalu for the Pacific Islands Forum, where Australia is facing pressure to take greater action on climate change.
Yesterday Ardern said she would not comment on Australia's climate change commitment.
But Ardern's message has been met with fierce backlash from Jones and a number of like-minded Australians.
Broadcaster Alan Jones and a number of Australians have slammed Jacinda Ardern after she took aim at Scott Morrison over climate change. Photo / Getty
Jones was upfront in his criticism of Ardern, saying Kiwis prefer Scott Morrison to herself and labelled the Prime Minister a "swallower of the [climate change] hoax".
"There's a headline story today where this lightweight New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is challenging Scott Morrison over climate change," Jones said on social media.
"This is this Pacific Leaders' Forum where the cargo cult mentality is alive and well.
"Talk climate change and we might be panicked into more money. Jacinda Ardern getting a headline because she's promised a carbon-neutral economy by 2050.
"But she's excluded agriculture and methane, that's cows breaking wind because they contribute half of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions.
"The fact is since 1990 New Zealand has grown carbon dioxide per capita at 10.8 per cent.
"Now I don't have a problem with carbon dioxide. It's only these swallowers of the hoax that seem to be worrying.
"But if they want to make it an issue, they had better live with the facts.
"New Zealand CO2 has grown by 10.8 per cent; Australia 1.8 per cent since 1990 ... When it comes to wind and solar which she's in love with, we get 12.1 per cent, New Zealand 0.93 per cent.
The assertion that Australia would answer to other Pacific nations sparked mild pushback from the Australian media, news.com.au reported.
"Demanding Australia abandon its coal production and exports for the good of the climate in the Pacific is akin to asking New Zealand to give up its love affair with sheep," wrote The Australian's environment editor Graham Lloyd.
"Ardern is naive if she believes such moves would be economically feasible or in the best interests of regional stability."
The Daily Telegraph's Tim Blair made the point a bit more facetiously.
"New Zealand's 'luttle but' of carbon dioxide output doesn't make the slightest bit of difference to the fate of Pacific islands or anything else. Does Wellington even have factories?" he wrote.
New Zealand has committed to cutting its carbon emissions by 30 per cent by 2030, just two percentage points more than Australia's target.
The country did not sign up for binding 2020 targets under the Kyoto 2 process after nearly missing its target for the first round.
Despite Ardern's goals and promises to tackle climate change, some Australians have had enough telling her to butt out of international politics.
"Sort out your own country first. Lead by example not finger-pointing!" one wrote.
Another said: "Go away Jacinda and take your pie in the sky ideas with you."
