The Secret Diary ... of the Ardern Years

Jacinda Ardern. was fun to mock, writes Steve Braunias. Photo / Mark Mitchell

OPINION

Of course I will miss Jacinda Ardern. I loved writing cowboy sagas about her in these last few years of the Secret Diary, and was mightily looking forward to more in 2023. She was set to play a starring role as Sheriff Ardern, striking fear into the ambitious rabble of the Luxon Gang and taking advice from an endless series of highly paid deputy consultants. But she put her guns oin the ground on Thursday morning. A long black cloud came down over satire.

She was fun to mock. A political cartoonist has places on Ardern’s face to get her likeness. A political satirist has her words. Very early on I picked up on her mastery of saying precisely nothing at great length. The first Secret Diary I wrote about her was during the 2017 election. She said, “What have I been eating on the campaign trail? Yeah, good question. And I think New Zealanders have a right to know that. I also think that most New Zealand know my values, and they know that I’m transparent about all my dealings.

“That’s why I’ll be sending out a working party to investigate the issue.”

The Secret Diary, December 5, 2020. Jacinda Ardern was prime satire fodder for Steve Braunias right from her first term as PM.

Another column during that campaign was about National’s alarm at having to deal with Jacindamania. Bill English: “As interim Prime Minister, I have identified a number of issues which are facing ordinary New Zealanders such as myself and the most troubling of all is Jacinda Ardern.”

The good old days. But public life is one of the worst kinds of life. “You don’t have Nixon to kick around any more,” the great wretch Richard Nixon famously said at his 1962 press conference to announce he was leaving politics, which was unfortunately only temporary. Ardern had her critics in the media but the real kicking came from the citizenry who saw her as a threat to democracy or whatever. Their caricatures were far more vicious than anything I wrote about her in the Secret Diary. Either I was a pet satirist, a satirist of the state, or I just couldn’t bring myself to view her as Hitler in a dress. Gareth Morgan had another way of putting it – lipstick, a pig – and I’m very glad he disappeared.

Ardern was the subject of 17 Secret Diaries. In her first term, I had her saying, “Let me be perfectly clear. The housing crisis has many fathers but my government is more like a kindly distant relative.” The most recent column was in October: “The sound of mooing cows woke Sheriff Ardern from a pleasant dream where she walked next to God and blessed the poor with cost of living payments ... She rolled up the sleeves of her $725 dress crafted in a luxe viscose silk dobby and adorned with a striking signature print that her team of highly paid deputy consultants said would relate to the ordinary folks.”

Anyway. Farewell, then, to Sheriff Ardern. We will not see her like again. The new leader will no doubt be fun, too - Chris Hipkins is funny in that gee-willikers! kind of way, and Kiri Allan is funny in the way that her selection might guarantee Labour would lose by a landslide – but it won’t be the same without Ardern. She was one of a kind, with her relentless and annoying sincerity, her relentless and annoying optimism, her relentless and annoying team of highly paid deputy consultants.

Her exit buried some very good news this week. No one paid much mind to National’s reshuffle. But Christopher Luxon gladdened a satirist’s heart with his decision to promote the funniest person in New Zealand politics – the crazy woman in the attic, the one and very much only Judith Collins. Satire never really recovered when she got rolled as National’s leader. It’s great to have her back in the limelight.

Bring on election year. Very soon, we’ll have a new Prime Minister, a new sheriff waiting on the main street of Dodge City for high noon on October 14. See you in the saloon. Right now, a toast to Sheriff Ardern. Her drink of choice: single-malt whisky.