COMMENT:
These are tough times - and many of us are doing it tough. Fortunately, we have a leader whose toughness has matched what our problems demand, if they are to be confronted and overcome.
I wonder how many people have marvelled, as I have, at the sheer mental and physical toughness shown by our Prime Minister as she has negotiated her way through the many challenges of the coronavirus pandemic - day after day, week after week, and month after month?
As one who has had personal experience of the mental and physical toll exacted by leading a life in the public gaze, by public speaking, by doing repeated television and radio interviews, and by giving regular press conferences, I can only wonder at how Jacinda Ardern has kept going, given the pressure she is under for every minute of the day. The mental and nervous energy required to expose oneself repeatedly to public scrutiny in this way is enormous.
Surveys have shown that being faced with having to speak in public is the prospect that people find most frightening but she takes it in her stride.
How does a young woman and mother, with a little toddler to look after, find the time to get herself briefed daily by her science and health advisers, consult with her Cabinet and individual ministers, front up in Parliament, report daily to the nation on radio and television and have herself grilled by commentators and journalists every day, and then reach critical decisions on the hugely important issues she has to face. How does that young woman find the inner strength to make tough decisions on issues that would have daunted most ordinary people - and most world leaders as well?