by Daphna Whitmore
Yesterday Jacinda made a pretty speech in parliament about how she doesn’t like unfairness. One time she lived for a little while in a small forestry town plagued by poverty. Jacinda thinks poverty is unfair and she doesn’t like that. Most of all Jacinda doesn’t think it is fair that anything should get in the way of her ambition to be Prime Minister. She “didn’t come in to parliament to be in opposition,” she said.
Today she made it clear that under no circumstances would she be sticking her ambitious neck out to defend Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei. For days on end Metiria has been under a barrage of right-wing attacks for getting a little extra allowance while trying to survive on a sole benefit in the 1990s. Jacinda showed her solidarity by sending a message to Metiria to fall on her sword, and that she would not be getting a cabinet position in a Labour-led government.
The vicious welfare cuts of the early ’90s made benefits impossible to live on. Metiria was not simply a student in a flatting situation, she had a child she was raising while studying law. Those benefit cuts were never reversed by Labour in government from 1999 to 2008. Jacinda hasn’t got anything to say about that unfairness.
Jacinda grew up a Mormon girl whose dad was the local policeman in the town. She worked for a while in a fish and chip shop and she went on to do a nice light degree at Waikato University. No getting bogged down in a hefty law degree. Then Jacinda went to a well-paid job in parliament. From there she went to a very well-paid job in London and then back to New Zealand in to a very, very well-paid job as an MP.
Jacinda is not going to let the issue of beneficiary rights to get in the way of her career. Nor would Jacinda let any principles get in the way of important stuff like her career. John Minto gives a couple of clear examples of where Jacinda stands:
“My opinion of her politics took a serious dive in 2011 when in the space of a short time she attended the launch of a book by Paul Henry – yes that Paul Henry – and then attended a presentation by none other than Tony Blair at Eden Park.
“I was one of the protest organisers for Blair’s visit and while we had a good crowd outside calling for Blair to be arrested and charged with war crimes, Jacinda Ardern was inside with a bunch of big noters helping give credibility to him and his visit.
“ I emailed her about these things and her response was to the effect that she didn’t only speak to people she agreed with and that she had asked Blair whether he had changed his mind about the decision to invade Iraq.
“I thought her reasoning was weak. Henry is a populist racist and misogynist and there was no need for her to bolster his image and ego by her presence. Meanwhile Blair should have been arrested by the NZ government and sent to the war crimes tribunal as a suspect for the most appalling of war crimes after he colluded with George Bush and “sexed-up” a dossier supposedly justifying the US/UK invasion of Iraq in 2003.
“ I’m happy to accept people make mistakes (I make plenty myself) and can learn and move on. I haven’t seen any evidence of that with Jacinda.”
Today Jacinda launched the new campaign slogan “Let’s do this” as she threw Metiria Turei under a bus.
Jacinda’s “Let’s do this” slogan is so much more meaningful than “a Fresh Approach”. Because Labour throwing the Greens and Maori under a bus is not a fresh approach, it’s an old story. Yesterday Kelvin Davis felt proud as a Maori to be in the deputy position in Labour. National has a Maori deputy, NZ First has a Maori leader, the Maori Party obviously does, the Greens have Metiria, Mana of course has, but Labour is virtually the last cab off the rank to have a Maori near the top spot.
A better, fairer New Zealand? Not under Labour, you can count on that.
Redline 
Yes, she went from a cosy job working for Helen Clark and Phil Goff in parliament here, then off to the UK to work in Blair’s cabinet office and then back to NZ to become a Labour list MP in her late 20s. She’s never had any real experience in the real world of low-paid work, unemployment and solo parenting. And her attitude to Metiria Turei shows she has no understanding – and no empathy – for the low-paid, the unemployed, the poor, the solo parents struggling to survive on woefully inadequate benefits. And in the 1990s benefits were even meaner than they are now.
The other day a member of AWSM, who experienced the Blair regime first-hand as a British citizen, described Ardern as “Tony Blair in a dress”. Sounds fairly accurate to me.
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Specious argument – Robespierre was not a sans-culotte. And Lenin was not a peasant.
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Indeed, many socialists have been class traitors and great assets to the workers movement. What gives you any impression that Ardern is such a figure, Neville? BA in Comms straight into official labour party positions? An unrepentant careerist which one assumes lacks a spine since she seems to actually be *entirely* hollow – so to extend the metaphor, no spine, no guts, no heart.
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In response to Neville: No, but they went over to the oppressed classes and risked their lives in doing so. They never enjoyed cosy existences within the institutions of the exploiting class on their way to the overthrow of the existing order.
What person who really wants to change the world goes and works for the likes of Helen Clark, Phil Goff and Tony Blair and climbs the greasy pole of the NZ Labour Party?
I also think she is disingenuous. What, want to be Labour Party leader, lil’ old me? Hell yeh, you did Jacinda. You’re a disingenuous, ambitious social climber. And if you do ever get to be prime minister, you’re post-PM goal could well be to run the UN.
And what about “Let’s Do This!” More vacuousness. It sounds like a slogan dreamed up by a ridiculous advertising person who has no street cred but is desperately trying to sound like s/he is down with the kids.
These bourgeois Labourites want to be in power for the sake of being in power. It’s an end in itself. They’re not even glove puppets because even the glove is empty.
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“They never enjoyed cosy existences within the institutions of the exploiting class on their way to the overthrow of the existing order.”
That is precisely what Robespierre did.
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