Jacinda Ardern provided an update to followers on Instagram on Tuesday.
Dame Jacinda Ardern has broken her social media hiatus to share details of her new life across the Ditch, elaborating on the work she has been doing overseas.
In a post to belatedly mark International Women’s Day, the former Prime Minister revealed how she had spent the special day with two of the most important women in her life.
“I don’t know about all of you, but on International Women’s Day, always just feels like it’s a really nice excuse to reach out to the people who help us in our daily lives, in our worlds, a little bit of time for reflection.
“So I had the joy of spending it with my mother and my sister, which was really, which was really lovely, particularly given I’ve been living away from home for a couple of years.”
Ardern was spotted strolling along the popular Manly Beach in Sydney over the weekend with husband Clarke Gayford and their daughter Neve.
The trio recently relocated to Sydney after several years spent travelling for her activism work.
Last month, her office told the Guardian the family is “basing themselves out of Australia – they have work there, and it brings the added bonus of more time back home in New Zealand”.
In the video she shared several updates on the work she has been involved in since she left office in 2023.
The 45-year-old has joined the Global Advisory Council for Law Zero, a group working to create artificial intelligence that is more “human-centric”.
Ardern said the organisation is “really sparking greater debate and conversation around how we ensure that, whilst all of the enormous gains of AI are felt widely and those benefits are felt widely”.
“How do we also make sure that we have the protective measures in place that we reduce down or remove the harms that may be brought with this development of this new technology, which research shows most people have concerns about.”
She also spoke about her administration of the Matariki Fund, which received $5.1 million in funding to work towards the elimination of cervical cancer in the Pacific earlier this month.
“It’s been incredible working with Pacific leaders and with Auckland University on that project to support them with the work that they’re already doing to address a need that they have already seen.”
The video comes just as the Royal Commission released the results of its inquiry into her Government’s handling of the 2021 Covid-19 pandemic today.
The just-released 323-page final report found former ministers and their officials made “strenuous efforts to make the right decisions” and, overall, the decisions were “balanced and reasonable”.
However some Covid restrictions went “too far”; the Government was “too slow” revoking them, and public patience waned.
Against Sir Ashley Bloomfield’s recommendations, the Government kept Aucklanders in lockdown for an additional four days as they undertook further testing.
The Royal Commission concluded that restrictions and border requirements likely could have been rolled back sooner.
The Government’s hard focus on using PCR tests because they were the “most accurate” at the time ended up increasing “disruption”, rather than easing it, the report said.
Vaccine advice “against requiring two doses for 12- to 17-year-olds” was not provided to ministers or to the 12- to 17-year-olds who were subject to the vaccine requirement, a failure the commission describes as “significant”.
Ardern accepted the findings in a joint statement with her former Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson.
“We got a lot right. More than most. But there are areas that could have been better,” the pair admitted.