Ben Mack: Jacinda Ardern won't change a thing

Prepare yourself for a serious gut punch, because Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister changes nothing, says Ben Mack. Photo / NZ Herald, Doug Sherring

I'll never forget the night Barack Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States.

It was November 4, 2008. Even from my dorm on the sixth floor of Barnes Towers Hall at Boise State University in Idaho - a little blue dot in what was basically the reddest state in America - it was pandemonium.

Such were the celebrations, you could've been forgiven for thinking it was 1945 and the Nazis had just been defeated, or that it was 1969 and we'd just made it to the moon. That evening, I had never been prouder to be an American. The dark forces of bigotry and hatred, of division and distrust, had been defeated once and for all by the election of an African-American man to the nation's highest office.

Or so many of us thought.

Fast-forward nine years. America is now ruled by an actual white supremacist who, if the rumours are to be believed, used to keep a copy of Hitler's speeches on his nightstand.

So why am I telling you this little story?

Because that might well be the fate of New Zealand.

Go ahead, laugh all you want. But think about this: other than the fact we have a new Prime Minister, what, exactly, has changed?

Prepare your stomachs for a serious gut punch, because here's the thing: Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister changes nothing.

The mere thought may make a lot of us squirm uncomfortably, or prickle with anger, but deep within, we know it's the devastating truth.

This isn't meant as an indictment of the Prime Minister. She's only been in office a few days. I'll give her a bit of time before I judge her (though I've made my feelings about Winston Peters quite clear). Actions, of course, speak far louder than words.

While the Prime Minister may be new, the problems are not.

We're all familiar with them:

• A patriarchal system that rewards sexual abusers and punishes victims.
• The systematic oppression faced by women, LGBT+ people, and everyone not a cisgender white man.
• A mental health crisis made worse not by our healthcare system (though that could use improvement), but the fast-paced, high-pressure world in which we live.
• Our polluted environment.
• Climate change.
• That genderqueer people like myself don't have the same basic rights as other people do, such as being forced to write "female" or "male" on official forms when we don't identify as either.
• The xenophobia immigrants face daily.
• The continuing rise of fascism and the far right, including here in Aotearoa (hello, neo-Nazis who might be reading this. Thanks for plastering pictures of me on your websites recently. Gave my social media accounts a nice traffic bump).

And on. And on. And on. Ad infinitum, seemingly.

These are enormous problems. Too big for one person to solve, no matter how committed they are or if they're the leader of the Government. As long as those things remain problems, I could care less if the Prime Minister was an actual raccoon that had acquired human speech and the ability to walk on two legs.

Again, there's nothing wrong in hoping Ardern can fix things. But believing she'll fix everything all on her own is naïve at best, incredibly dangerous at worst.

My concern is too many people think she will magically fix things by herself.

We all know New Zealand has had inspiring female leaders before. Unfortunately, the problems of misogyny, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, xenophobia, bigotry, hatred and systematic oppression have lasted long after Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark. And unless we act, they will also last long after Jacinda Ardern.

At least the PM herself seems to acknowledge that she alone can't fix all this nation's ills. "We could be doing a lot better," she told Villainesse back in September. There's a key word in there: we. As in, all of us.

In 1961, the late US President John F. Kennedy said: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

Such words have never been more apt. The PM would do well to repeat them in her next big speech.

We all have a responsibility. The media must continue to do its job as the Fourth Estate and hold power to account. We, the people, also need to continue to push for positive change. And if the Prime Minister does do something that goes against our conscience - such as restricting immigration, or not doing enough to close the gender pay gap or remove abortion from the Crimes Act or reduce our greenhouse gas emissions (as she has promised) - we need to call her out on that, forcefully and with a conviction that New Zealand can and must do better.

"Relentless positivity?" Sure. But we can't afford to be complacent and assume everything will be OK now that we have a new, decidedly progressive leader.

This is how it starts. When we become blind to the problems we face, that's when they grow, multiply and take over.

Let's open our eyes before it's too late.