I hope they are right but she has not proved it yet. From what we read, only one other prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, has had a baby in office and Pakistan is not exactly a model of good government. Ardern is entering uncharted water and inside the Labour Party I suspect a few old hands may be looking forward to the happy day with a certain trepidation.
All going well up to the birth, the baby will be great for the new Government. If it doesn't pass National in the next polls, I'll be astonished. A pregnant Prime Minister will be utterly charming and politically inviolate. The June birth will be a media feeding frenzy and every appearance of mother and baby during those six weeks leave will have cameras clicking and a nation clucking.
But then comes the test. Some of those who have been hailing the news as a breakthrough for women this week might not fully realise what a Prime Minister has to do.
A case of papers is delivered to them every day, wherever they are, whatever they are doing. They need to read them before the next day's dispatch arrives. John Key once showed me the contents of his. It would keep me reading for a week. They work on their papers in limos, planes, every spare moment they get between public engagements and media calls that would put pressure enough on most people.
A Prime Minister's decisions set the tone, position, direction and pace of the Government. They are never off the job. Day or night, instant decisions can be needed on questions large and small. Not everything can be delegated or delayed. Staff and colleagues need the boss to make a call they could make but dare not unless they are certain the PM would agree.
Cabinet ministers have only their own portfolios to worry about, and some of those can keep them busy from dawn to midnight. The Prime Minister has to keep abreast of them all. She will have all ministers keyed up to alert her staff to anything that could be contentious and politically damaging but she will learn, if she hasn't already, that they miss a lot. It's only when you carry the can that you remain fully conscious of what might spill.
What will ministers do when they know the Prime Minister has a baby? Will they keep things from her to try to lighten her load? Mistakes could be made, co-ordination fail, Government could suffer. Ardern will be aware of the dangers, that's why she says she intends to keep in touch with her office through her leave.
But is it possible? I don't know, I'm male, I can't concentrate on more than one task at a time.
It's true that were she a man I would not be asking these questions. But it's also true that an announcement a young male Prime Minister was to become a father for the first time would have received a few paragraphs in the paper and attracted only passing interest in conversation. Like it or not motherhood is different. I like it.
