Barry Soper: Dame Jacinda Ardern left Chris Hipkins to clean up the mess she created

OPINION

Dame Jacinda Ardern was perplexed, after quitting the Prime Minister’s job in January, when she was asked to write a book, which will probably be worth more to her than her five years as leader.

She was perplexed as she was unsure of what to write about. After all, this woman was on record not long before being anointed to become Prime Minister as saying she would never want to do the job. Pity she never made good her musings.

Someone suggested to her she should write it about leadership and she liked the idea and that’s what we’re going to get in the bookstores some time in the future.

It should be compulsory reading for all aspiring MPs, essentially so they can avoid the sort of leadership she’ll be writing about. Her five years at the top were a disaster, showing how ill-equipped she was for the job.

Okay, there was her outpouring over the ghastly Mosque massacre in Christchurch, even if wearing the hijab was frowned upon by some who felt it degraded women. She said the right words, but then anyone who was leading the country at the time would have expressed similar sentiments.

What Ardern has done, though, is to leave her colleagues this year to clean up the mess she created.

The sous chef in her kitchen Cabinet, Chris Hipkins, has done his best to distance himself from her acquiescence to factions, particularly to Māori. Her Cabinet appointments and her arm’s length approach to them (think Michael Wood telling her he’d sold his Auckland Airport shares) has left Hipkins to clean up the mess as the true face of her Cabinet appointments is becoming clear.

Hipkins did learn something from her though: To capitulate until the inevitable happens, with him running out of options and the public running out of patience. Four ministers have now surrendered their warrants this year after, with the exception of one, being given chance after chance to redeem themselves. The exception is Meka Whaitiri, although Ardern did stand her down for a while after she got pushy-shovey with one of her staff members.

In the end, Whaitiri had had enough and threw her support behind the Māori Party, to add to the chaos.

The on-again off-again leave given by Hipkins in recent weeks to Justice Minister Kiri Allan is another example of the Ardern treatment of transgressors.

This Government has become as messy as the last two-term Government, ironically also led by a populist leader, David Lange. He exited in the same way as Ardern, although his reasons were a little more salacious.

There are more than 20 new Labour MPs who came in at the last election who will now be filling out job applications.

The Ardern/Hipkins Government have failed on so many fronts, despite their unbridled power, the strongest majority since the first Labour Government of Mickey Joseph Savage 1935. At least Savage left a legacy of state housing and free medical care, as did the Lange Government, the economic foundation stone which set the country on the difficult recovery path after the Muldoon misery.

This Government has left a lawless, impoverished, struggling country, longing for relief.