Jacinda Ardern

At 44 years old, Jacinda Ardern has this physical status:

Jacinda Kate Ardern (born 26 July 1980) is a senior New Zealand politician who has been in office as the country's 40th Prime Minister since September 26.

Since being elected as the Leader of the Labour Party on August 1, 2017, Ardern has also served as the Labour Party's chief.

Ardern has been a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Mount Albert electorate since March 8, 2017; she was first elected as a list MP in Prime Minister Helen Clark's office.

She later served in the United Kingdom as a strategic advisor to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In 2008, she was elected President of the International Union of Socialist Youth, a post she held for almost ten years until she was re-elected in the Mount Albert electorate in the 2017 by-election on February 25.

Following Annette King's resignation, she was unanimously elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party on March 1, 2017.

Following a historic low poll result for the Labour Party, Ardern assumed Leadership of the Labour Party on August 1, 2017.

She is credited with raising her party's status in opinion polls.

The Labour Party gained 46 seats in the general election of September 23, 2017, putting it behind the National Party, which gained 56 seats.

Following talks with National and Labour, the New Zealand First Party elected a minority coalition government with Labour, the Greens' backing, with Ardern as Prime Minister.

The New Zealand housing crisis, child poverty, and socioeconomic injustice have all been focusing on by Ardern's government.

In March 2019, she led the country through the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque massacres, and her government enforced tougher gun control in reaction. Ardern describes herself as a social democrat and a feminist.

She became the world's youngest female head of government at 37 years old (Sanna Marin of Finland became Prime Minister in 2019 at the age of 34).

When her daughter was born on June 21, 2018, Ardern became the world's second elected head of government to give birth while in office (after Benazir Bhutto).

Ardern has been widely praised as one of the world's most influential women and for her global reach, leadership abilities, and the fact that New Zealand's global ratings of approval and esteem have risen under her reign.

Early life and education

Ardern was born in Hamilton, New Zealand, on June 26th, 1980. She grew up in Morrinsville and Murupara, where her father, Ross Ardern, served as a police officer, and her mother, Laurell Ardern (née Bottomley), worked as a school catering assistant. Ardern was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and her uncle Ian S. Ardern is a general authority in the parish. She attended Morrinsville College, where she served as the student representative on the school's board of trustees. When she was still attending school, she began working at a local fish-and-chip store for her first job.

At the age of 17, she joined the Labour Party. During her 1999 general election campaign, her aunt, Marie Ardern, a long-serving Labour Party member, recruited a teen Ardern to help her with campaigning for New Plymouth MP Harry Duynhoven.

Ardern completed a Bachelor of Communication Studies in politics and public relations, a three-year degree at the University of Waikato, graduating in 2001 with a Bachelor of Political Studies in politics and public relations. In 2001, she spent a semester at Arizona State University. She spent time as a researcher in the offices of Phil Goff and Helen Clark after graduating from university. Ardern left New York City, where she served at a soup kitchen and worked on a workers' rights campaign, to London, where she became a senior policy advisor in an 80-person policy unit of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. (She did not meet Blair in London, but later at an event in New Zealand in 2011 she questioned him about the 2003 invasion of Iraq.) Ardern was also seconded to the United Kingdom Home Office to assist with a policing audit in England and Wales.

Personal life

Ardern left the church in 2005 at age 25 because, she said, it clashed with her personal convictions, especially her support for gay rights. Ardern wrote "I can't see myself as a member of an organized faith" again in January 2017. Russell M. Nelson, the president of LDS Church, was visiting her as prime minister in 2019.

Ardern is Hamish McDouall, the mayor of Whanganui, and he is his second cousin. Shane Ardern, a distant cousin of former National MP for Taranaki-King Country, is also a distant cousin. Shane Ardern left Parliament in 2014, three years before Jacinda Ardern assumed Prime Minister status.

Clarke Gayford, the television presenter at Ardern, is the Ardern's partner. Both the couple were first introduced by a mutual friend, Colin Mathura-Jeffree, a New Zealand television host and model, but they did not spend time together until Gayford contacted Ardern regarding a contentious Government Communications Bureau bill. Ardern had been engaged to marry to Gayford, according to a report on May 3rd. The wedding was supposed to take place in January 2022, but it was postponed due to the outbreak of the SARS-Cov-2 Omicron version.

Ardern revealed on January 19th that she was expecting her first child in June, making her New Zealand's first prime minister to be pregnant in office. On June 21, 2018, Ardern was admitted to Auckland City Hospital and gave birth to a girl the same day, becoming only the second elected head of the government to give birth while in office (after Benazir Bhutto in 1990). Neve Te Aroha is her daughter's name. Neve is an anglicized form of the Irish word Niamh, which means 'bright,'; Aroha is Mori for 'love,'; and Te Aroha is a small town west of Ardern's former home town Morrinsville.

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Early political career

Ardern was elected president of the International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY) in the Dominican Republic on January 30, 2008, at the age of 27. Her role saw her travel to many countries, including Hungary, Jordan, Israel, Algeria, and China. Ardern became a Labour Party list MP halfway through her presidency term. She then moved to both positions for the next 15 months.

Ardern was ranked 20th on Labour's Party List ahead of the 2008 election. This was a difficult find for someone who was not already a sitting MP and had almost assured her of a seat in Parliament. Ardern resigned from London to campaign full time, according to reports. She has also voted for Labour in Waikato's secure National electorate. Ardern was disqualified in the general election, but Labour's strong position on Labour's party list enabled her to enter Parliament as a list member. She became Parliament's youngest sitting MP after the 2010 general election, replacing fellow Labour MP Darren Hughes, and remaining the youngest MP until Gareth Hughes' election.

Phil Goff, the Opposition leader, elevated Ardern to the front bench, naming her Labour's spokesperson for Youth Affairs and as her advocate for Justice (Youth Affairs) in place of her current position.

She appeared on TVNZ's Breakfast show as part of "Young Guns" series, in which she co-starred with National MP (and eventual National leader) Simon Bridges.

In the 2011 general election, Ardern challenged Labour Prime Minister Denise Roche for National and Greens candidate Denise Roche. She lost by 717 votes to Kaye. However, she returned to Parliament via the party platform, on which she was ranked 13th. Although she was a list MP based in Auckland Central, Ardern maintained an office within the electorate.

Ardern favored David Shearer over David Cunliffe after Goff resigned from the party's leadership following his demise in the 2011 race. She was promoted to fourth place in his Shadow Cabinet on December 19, 2011, becoming a spokesperson for social change under the new leader.

At the 2014 general election, Ardern appeared in Auckland Central once more. Kaye finished second, but she voted for the second time and reduced her majority from 717 to 600. Ardern had been back to Parliament, where she became Shadow spokesperson for Justice, Children, Small Business, and Arts & Culture under new leader Andrew Little, ranked 5th on Labour's list.

Ardern was also selected, attended, and graduated from the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Forum of Young Global Leaders, organized by Klaus Schwab in Switzerland in 2014. She continues to be active in the Young Global Leaders Alumni Network, and she speaks at WEF events.

Following David Shearer's departure on December 8, Ardern submitted her name for Labour nomination for the Mount Albert by-election in February 2017. Ardern was the only candidate for the Labour Party when nominations were closed on December 12, 2017, and he was unopposed. Ardern was on January 21 in the 2017 Women's March, a worldwide protest against Donald Trump, the recently installed president of the United States. At a meeting on January 22, she was confirmed as Labour's candidate. Ardern won a landslide victory, winning 75% of the votes cast in the preliminary results.

Following Annette King's resignation, the Labour Party's deputy leader was unanimously elected following her victory in the by-election on March 7, 2017. Raymond Huo took Ardern's vacant list position.

Following Andrew Little's departure, Ardern assumed the role of leader of the Labour Party and then became the Opposition leader on August 1st. Little bowed down due to the party's historically low voter registration. At a caucus meeting the same day, Ardern was unanimously declared in an election to elect a new leader. Ardern became the youngest leader of the Labour Party in the country's history at 37 years old. She is also the party's second female leader after Helen Clark. According to Ardern, Little had previously approached her on July 26th, saying he should have assumed responsibility as Labour leader then, although Ardern denied and told him to "stick it out."

At her first press conference since being elected leader, she said that the forthcoming election campaign would be one of "relentless optimism." Following her arrival, the party was flooded with public contributions, reaching NZ$700 per minute at its peak. Labour's opinion polls increased dramatically after Ardern's ascension to the leadership. The party had risen to 43% in the Colmar Brunton poll by late August (having been 24 percent under Little's leadership), as well as winning National opinion polls for the first time in more than a decade. Detractors found that her positions were remarkably similar to those of Andrew Little, and that Labour's sudden rise in prominence was due to her youth and good looks.

Ardern announced in mid-August that a Labour government would form a tax working group to investigate the possibility of enforcing a capital gains levy but refused to tax family homes. Ardern scrapped plans to introduce a capital gains tax during the first term of a Labour government in reaction to negative publicity. Grant Robertson, a finance spokesperson, later stated that Labour would not introduce new taxes until after the 2020 election. The policy change came as a result of Minister of Finance Steven Joyce's assertion that Labour had a $11.7 billion "hole" in its tax policy.

Farmers' views of the Labour and Green parties' proposed water and pollution levy have also been chastised. Federated Farmers, a farming advocacy group, staged a protest against the taxes on September 18th in Morrinsville, Ardern's hometown. Winston Peters, the first Prime Minister of New Zealand, attended the demonstration to campaign but the farmers mocked him because he was also in favour of the taxes. One farmer held a sign calling Ardern a "pretty communist." Former Prime Minister Helen Clark dismissed this as misogynistic.

The opinion polls narrowed in the final days of the general election campaign, with National taking the lead.

Ardern secured her Mount Albert electorate seat by a margin of 15,264 votes in the general election on September 23, 2017. Labour's vote share rose to 36.89 percent, while National dropped to 44.45 percent. Labour gained 14 seats, raising its parliamentary representation to 46 seats, the highest result for the party since losing power in 2008.

The rival Labour and National parties lacked enough seats to rule alone, and the Greens and New Zealand First parties discussed the formation of a coalition. New Zealand First maintained the balance of power and chose Labour to be a coalition government under Labour's mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting system.

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