Jacinda Ardern resigns as Prime Minister: Her family are the real winners, not gutless online critics - Mike Munro

OPINION

Those gutless and faceless creeps who made vile threats against Jacinda Ardern and her family and used social media platforms to vilify the Prime Minister will think they have won.

But they haven’t won anything.

Born losers like them will never be winners. They choose to wallow in obscurity and that’s where they’re best left, out on the margins.

If there are any winners in the wake of Thursday’s bombshell, it is the PM’s family. Clarke Gayford will get to enjoy more quality time with his partner, and the two of them can now focus in earnest on wedding plans. Their daughter Neve will have Mum at home every evening. Neve will walk through the school gate for the first time in June, and she can now be certain that her mother - freed of onerous prime ministerial duties - will be at her side. As will Neve’s dad too, of course.

That’s what winning looks like.

There is another kind of loser in all of this. I’m not talking about the cowardly type of loser, the anonymous peddlers of poison, but decent people who feel a deep sense of shock and sadness when there is a sudden exit of a much-loved and respected figure.

It won’t be just Ardern’s Government colleagues and the Labour Party feeling this way, but also the tens of thousands of ordinary Kiwis who were inspired by her skills and leadership, and took pride in the way she conducted herself, especially when on the world stage.

Their feeling of loss will be profound.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hugs her fiancee Clark Gayford after announcing her resignation. Photo / Mark Mitchell

On Wednesday, the day before Ardern’s stunning announcement, it was five years to the day since the country learned the Prime Minister was pregnant.

I remember the day well. She was newly installed in the job and the Government was still in ‘First 100 Days’ mode. Her pregnancy was huge and joyous news for the country. Ardern had a bright new world ahead of her, both personally and politically.

But a little over a year later, as the PM balanced motherhood and prime ministerial responsibilities, the world didn’t seem so bright from a governmental vantage point.

The traumatic Christchurch terror attacks in March 2019 saw the PM setting aside everything else to lead the response, a task she performed admirably, and that won her acclaim and respect at home and abroad. Then later that year came the Whakaari-White Island eruption, another terrible event that consumed a lot of Ardern’s time and energy.

A matter of months later, the Covid-19 virus arrived on our shores and the country went into lockdown and grappled with huge disruption to economic and everyday life. Ardern maintained a punishing schedule throughout, and the country rewarded her for her stellar efforts by handing Labour a thumping victory at the October 2020 election.

But by 2021 pandemic fatigue was beginning to set in and a global economic crisis was brewing.

That is when the public mood began to change. Resistance to vaccination mandates and border restrictions began to mount and most of the protesters’ vitriol was aimed at Ardern. The hate mail and threats escalated, especially around the time of the violent and lawless occupation of Parliament’s grounds.

Then, when the economic crisis began to buffet us, public grumps really set in.

All of this would take a toll on any normal human being. It certainly did on Jacinda Ardern, one of the most human of political leaders.

I am not surprised that the PM is bereft of energy, and feels there’s nothing left in the tank.

The five years that have elapsed between the jubilation that greeted the PM’s pregnancy in January 2018 and her resignation announcement on Thursday, must feel to her like 10 years. It has been the most harrowing five-year stretch for any New Zealand prime minister outside of wartime.

During a conversation with the PM in 2018, I recall her wondering aloud whether two terms would suffice for her. By then she was experiencing the demands of the role, and I suspect she was thinking too about Neve starting school in June 2023.

I got the impression that leadership to her was not about occupying office and pandering to popular whim. She wanted to get things done, to progress issues that mattered to her, like climate change policy and child poverty reduction measures.

But then came the waves of unforeseen trouble.

The creeps will claim credit for running down Ardern’s reserves of energy and hounding her out of office. But that’s not the reason she’s going.

It was the unprecedented events that unfolded on her watch — events which she handled in a way that showcased her intelligence, compassion and integrity — and that left her feeling so jaded that it was time to pass the baton to someone else.

That time arrived this week.

- Mike Munro is a former chief of staff for Jacinda Ardern and was chief press secretary for Helen Clark.