Jacinda Ardern
speaker
169 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Jun 2025
last heard 13 Apr
Jacinda Ardern’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Apr 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And in the book, I talk a little bit about that moment because whilst a lot of the commentary was about me, when I was photographed at that time, I was listening to one of the most humbling experiences, which was a leader in the Muslim community who had just watched members of his congregation been...
I think in leadership, particularly in these times... There's a tendency at least to be provided with advice to avoid unpredictable situations. And there is often nothing more unpredictable than periods of crisis, but particularly where there's crisis and grief, understandably.
And I think the important thing about proximity is it allows you to then understand what's needed. Empathy is nothing without action.
And hearing then in those moments what people needed. They'd lost, in many cases, their breadwinner that they may have had in that time. a lack of sense of security around their ability to continue to reside in New Zealand. There are a whole range of issues that by having that proximity you understood, and true empathy is then actually following through with action.
Now that you've seen it, now that you've heard it, what will you do about it? We are here just 26 days after the most devastating of terrorist attacks in New Zealand's history. When I visited the hospitals and the victims, None of them had just one gunshot wound. In every case, they spoke of multiple injuries, multiple debilitating injuries.
I could not fathom how weapons that could cause such destruction and large-scale death could have been obtained legally in this country.
In my mind, one of the beautiful things about New Zealand and New Zealand is such a pragmatic people. And every time you see crisis in New Zealand, whether or not it's a weather event or in this case, that alongside the care and support you see the community provide, there's that, now what can we do? And that is reflected then in an expectation of leaders. What will you do?
And there were two things. One was, well, first of all, we know that he was able to take the lives of so many because he had access to military-style semi-automatic weapons, particularly AR-15s. And then it begs the question, well, How was he able to get access to those? And the answer was legally.
And I remember in that briefing, which was only the day after the shooting when I received that briefing and was told he legally obtained those weapons, you know, my immediate instinct was, well, that can't stand. And I had that strong sense that even though I had to consult with other members of Parliament to get their support, I just had a sense that New Zealanders would want that to change.
And so when I went down to... But he wasn't even from New Zealand. He wasn't. He was from Australia. And there's a range of things that make things a bit easy when you're from the closeness of our relationship. But he was able to legally obtain those weapons.
And I think that was a shock to New Zealanders that you could so easily access weapons that were able to take the lives of so many so quickly.
Nobody had. Just the range of injuries and the scale of injuries. And so I just instinctively knew, and I think MPs knew, that New Zealanders would be behind them. And they were. When they cast the vote, 119 of 120 members of parliament supported the banning of military-style semi-automatic weapons in New Zealand. And so when we passed that law, we bought them back.
So people who had them, we paid for them. And then we destroyed them. Well, what do you say that people say, well, you didn't get rid of all of them? You know, in our minds, of course, understanding that New Zealand, you know, we are hunters, we have pests. There's a number of reasons why people hold guns.
But weapons like that, they're designed to take the lives of a large number of people in quick order. And in this case, they did. And yes, you know, we still have weapons in New Zealand, but we do not routinely now have these ones. And that was, I think, an incredibly important response to this attack.
Yeah, we're like, I guess everyone started with a small number. And that was one of the things when we looked out into the world, because we were later in receiving COVID, it took a little longer to get to our shores. Our first case was the 28th of February in 2020. So we could see what was happening.
And we also knew from modeling what it would mean for our population, tens of thousands of people losing their lives. And I remember being presented with that as a leader. I talk a little bit in the book about how there's so few decisions where you can draw that direct line between your decision and life and death. But a pandemic is one of them.
And one of the things that we decided to do really early on was just share everything we knew about this illness.
Just to be transparent, but also everything we didn't know. And as a result of that, you know, when it came to the point that we made the decision that actually we need to close our borders and see if we can try and keep New Zealand COVID free till we have another way of protecting people.
But by sharing all of that, New Zealanders could see not only the decisions we were making, but the choices we had. And I think that made a difference in people supporting the course of action. And accepting it. Yeah. Certainly in the beginning. In the beginning. And look, there is no question. You know, I look around the world. It was an incredibly difficult thing to govern through.
So how would you describe this last week? If there is like a subterranean space that sits beneath hell. That. No response was perfect. Populations around the world would have reflections on what they believed their governments did right and what they did wrong. And after the pandemic, we put in place a royal commission, people to go and ask those questions for us.
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