Jacinda Ardern – disasterous dictator or misunderstood?

A so-called ‘documentary’ covering the five-year term of New Zealand socialist prime minister Jacinda Ardern was shown at the Sundance Film Festival this week. But why was it made?

Made by her husband Clarke Gayford, and with her full cooperation, Prime Minister is not a fly on the wall exposé of the country’s most divisive PM, but a 102-minute puff piece leaving anyone who sees it – and who didn’t live under her regime – with a warm glow of un-earned admiration.

The $3.2m film, subsidised by Kiwi taxpayers to the tune of $800,000, tells her side of the truth – much like Ardern’s soon-to-be-published biography – A Different Kind of Powder.

Siddhant Adlakha of Variety summed the doco up best, calling it “simplistic”. That just about nails it. It’s pre-planned post-propaganda with some of the footage shot during Ardern’s two-terms as prime minister.

I lived in New Zealand under Ardern's rule during the covid years (2020-2023) and she terrified most thinking people. I left as soon as the borders were reopened.

On national media she told anyone who’d listen that her government was the single source of truth. Any of the country’s 5 million people who dare question her decisions were called an anti-vaxer (even if they had previously had a covid jab). The unvaxed were treated like they were unclean.

And because she put large parts of the country under house arrest for months, closing all but essential businesses, the only advertiser supporting mainstream media was the government.

This strangled the media, because even if they thought to question her or complain on behalf of their readers, their ad-revenue would have been cut on the spot.

The media in New Zealand is now paying for putting the government ahead of its readers, listeners, and viewers, as one by one they are going out of business due to their audiences seeking independent sources of news.

Jacinda Ardern on the parliamentary podium as prime minister.

Ardern even stopped all but mainstream media from publishing anything, leaving a vacuum in the media space. Only those that toed the line could operate. And when publishers could start again, their advertisers - mainly small businesses - had stopped trading.

Too many small business owners were driven to the wall having to pay rent, rates, and bank loans with no customers generating an income. Some lost their business, others lost the family home, a few lost everything, believing there was no future.

When it came to buying groceries, the only stores open were major supermarket chains. Only one member of a household could enter, and they’d have to wear a pointless face mask. Viruses are smaller than the holes in cheap paper masks, and viruses can enter via the eyes in any case. Viruses are everywhere all the time.

QR posters were at every shop front with instructions to customers to keep ‘a safe distance’. Many Kiwis were forced out of polite society until all restrictions were lifted.

There was a time when one couldn’t even sit on a park bench without being challenged. I was one of them.

After a walk along an Auckland beach I sat on a bench to watch the world go by and breathe in the fresh sea air. Within 10 minutes I was asked by a stranger if I was feeling alright. Kiwi speak for ‘you’re not allowed to sit down in a public space’. I kid you not.

At one time we could only walk with people from our own household (known as our ‘bubble’). Those who lived alone had to walk alone. If you didn’t there was an army of Ardern supporters, blindly sucked in by the madness, who would turn neighbours in to the authorities using a dedicated tip line to police (the site crashed due to the volume of narks using it).

Ardern even went on TV to tell citizens not to talk to their neighbours (that’s one way to prevent dissent spreading).

At one point the government threatened to send the army to round-up any who were not vaccinated. That may have even happened in an area of Northland, there was chatter about this on social media at the time...

Ardern prevented citizens abroad from returning home. Any who who were pregnant while out of the country had no choice but to deliver their babies where they were, and those children are now not citizens of New Zealand. Imagine that! Citizens were prevented from coming home!

Pensioners who relied on the State pension, and who happened be out of the country when the boarders were closed, ran out of money. Pension payments stop once you are out of New Zealand for six months.

Meanwhile, the rich and famous flooded into the country on private jets while the country’s borders were closed – these included DJs and actors. Celebs got in, citizens did not.

Ardern cost good people their careers. She broke her promise of ‘no jab, no job’. Mandating people to get jabbed to pay their bills. Those who claim to have been vax-injured were ignored – still are (despite growing evidence that builds by the day).

Later, when retailers were allowed to open, she introduced vaccine passports. No passport - no entry. No haircut, no take-away food, no bars, restaurants, concerts, cinema, wineries… Unless you could prove your vaccinations were up to date with an app on your phone.

Ardern – with the support of all political parties and a willing media – fractured families, and caused long standing friendships to break. Some relationships will never heal, and of those that have…Well, the scar is still there. It is the great unspoken.

Since Ardern ended her covid restrictions hundreds of thousands of the country's best and brightest have left (fled) the country - mainly for Australia. Others returned to their native homeland, having given up on a new life in the land of milk and honey – burnt by the experience.

Ardern was voted into power on the promise of building 10,000 new homes a year. She built next to none. In fact, under her leadership, the government’s housing department bid against first-time buyers to increase state housing stock.

Government can easily out-bid a young couple desperate for their first home. This action alone caused house prices to rise in a low-wage country with unaffordable real estate.

Ardern also made herself the minister of child poverty reduction. Under her watch, child poverty grew. The ‘caring and kind’ prime minister actually made things worse for children.

The country, as a direct result of her decisions, is on its knees by every measure. It is a basket case - in debt and in recession. Even the brothels are closing down!

Ardern is so despised by the populace she needs a tax-paid security detail just to walk down the street.

She has links to the WHO, WEF, Blackrock, Bill Gates, and was supported by Klaus Schwab’s young global leaders' programme. She got an honorary degree from Harvard University in 2022 (what a joke).

Ardern threw the towel in as the next election got closer saying she had “nothing left in the tank”.

She resigned knowing she was a political liability and left the country to start work as $250,000-a-pop conference speaker. As a ‘thank you’ for going quietly she was made a dame in 2023 (and accepted it without blushing).

I once thought it would take a generation (15 years) for the trauma of Ardern’s rule to be put behind us. Two years on... Like any major traumatic event that affects the people of a country, I now think it will be remembered for a hundred years, and sadly will be hard to put behind us.

Why she agreed to feature in a doco or write a book is beyond me. Had I left a country as fractured and poorly managed as she did I’d sheepishly slip quietly away and keep a low profile. But that’s me.

A paradise lost because of one woman. 100% power. 100% out of control.

Everyday I shake my head thinking about the irreversible harm she was allowed to cause by spreading fear under the guise of her politics of kindness mantra.

And it’s not as if people didn’t protest. They did.

The majority ridiculed them. And those with nothing left to lose were beaten by police in riot gear on the steps of parliament for peacefully exercising their right to disagree with Ardern’s vaccine mandates. My body, my choice? Not under Ardern.

To read the reaction of Kiwis to Prime Minister you need only visit the IMDB movie database here.

One person wrote: “If anyone bothered to interview the nation she left in tatters, they would soon realise the type of person she really was. Her husband doing this film says it all. People need to read the room and this doco will be traumatising for the people she destroyed.”

(Update: 31 January 2025. A whole tranche of comments on the IMDB site were deleted by IMDB. Screen grabs of new ones are below…)

If you want to see a documentary showing how Kiwis were treated under Ardern, there can be no better film than the award-winning River of Freedom.

A poll currently being run by New Zealand publisher Stuff.co.nz asks readers who they would prefer to run the country – US President Donald Trump, Jacinda Ardern, or neither. At the time of writing, Trump has 63% of the vote (Ardern 27%). Some of social media claim the numbers aren’t changing despite clicking for Trump.

Jacinda Ardern’s term as prime minister was October 2017 to January 2023.