Hectoring From a Very High Horse

No Longer a Puff-Piece in a Women's Mag

Oh, my!  That did not take long.  Jacinda Ardern, pop politician, leader of the New Zealand Labour Party for all of twenty one days, and a much salivated-over media creation, just hit the wall.  One gets a sinking feeling.  

She is trying desperately to project maturity, gravitas, decisiveness, and strength.  Sadly, she has come across as school marmish, which is entirely at odds with the persona the media have helped her build and craft over the past three years.  She suddenly has morphed into "Lecturer-at-large".  What happened to the commitment to "relentless positivity"?  It lasted five minutes, then hit the wall.

How on earth did the brand new leader of the Labour Party manage to provoke the Australian Government into scarcely concealed fury?  It all came about because of the idiocy of one of her senior MP's.  Chris Hipkins apparently conspired with the Australian Labour Party in an attempt to bring down the Australian Government.  He used the NZ Parliament to conduct his machinations.

 Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has strongly condemned the New Zealand Labour Party - saying should it be in power after the election it would be "very hard" to build trust.  "New Zealand is facing an election. Should there be a change of Government, I would find it very hard to build trust with those involved in allegations designed to undermine the Government of Australia," Bishop said today.  "I'm referring to Bill Shorten using a foreign political party to raise questions in a foreign parliament deliberately designed to undermine confidence in the Australian Government."

Bishop made the extraordinary comments after Labour MP, Chris Hipkins on August 9 put in two parliamentary written questions to Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne about the legal status of an Australian born to a New Zealand parent.  [NZ Herald]

 Ardern summoned the Australian High Commissioner "to explain".  She said:

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern, apparently responding to Bishop's comments, tweeted that she knew "absolutely nothing about the Barnaby Joyce case until it broke in the media yesterday.  I value our relationship with the Australian Govt highly. I won't let disappointing & false claims stand in the way of that relationship," Ardern tweeted.

Mmmm.  What disappointing and  false claims would those be, Jacinda?  She implies that the Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop has been lying, making false claims.  Yet the culpable facts are that Hipkins used the NZ Parliament to ask questions about the NZ citizenship of Australian politicians--questions which Ardern must have known about in advance--despite her denials--and to which she, therefore, tacitly consented.  Those questions were asked at the prompting of "someone" in Australia and were designed to undermine the present Australian Government.  In other words, they represented a deliberate ploy to interfere in Australian domestic politics.  That, Jacinda, is an absolute no-no.  But, according to Jacinda's skewed compass, for the Australian Foreign Minister to react against the "dirty politics" of the Australian and New Zealand Labour Party's is "disappointing" and amounts to "false claims".

Ardern claims that she knew nothing about the Parliamentary questions asked by her colleague Hipkins while Parliament was in session.  Hipkins claims to be ignorant of the import of what he was being asked to do.  Hipkins, then, is either a foolish stool pigeon or a liar.  Or both.  No, no, says Jacinda.  He just made an honest mistake.  So, foolish stool pigeon he is, then.

Just give Jacinda a moment to get back up on her high horse:

"I greatly value New Zealand's relationship with the Australian Government. I will not let false claims stand in the way of that relationship.  "I would happily take a call from Julie Bishop to clarify matters."  Ardern said she had contacted the Australian High Commission to "register my disappointment" and would be meeting with the High Commissioner in Wellington later today.

In other words, Bishop is the one at fault.  As one blogger put it:

So she is calling Julie Bishop a liar and saying the onus is on the Australian Foreign Minister to call her, not her to call Bishop and apologise for what Hipkins has done.

Ardern is hectoring from a very high, self-righteous horse indeed.  As they say, consistency is a gem, integrity is a pearl, and hypocrisy is a cracked cistern.