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“Horrendous,” Mrs. Ardern said, without hesitation, from Wellington’s Beehive.
Few would disagree with the prime minister, even if New Zealand were protected from the worst of Covid-19 during the pandemic.
New Zealand’s success in fighting the virus has been well surpassed.
Despite a series of small outbreaks in the past six months, a harsh 51-day blackout that began in March broke community broadcasting.
Ms. Ardern’s role in that success is also well known, and she was generously and appropriately rewarded for it in the October elections.
The Labor leader made political history in Kiwi with her resounding re-election, with an unprecedented majority in parliament.
So while New Zealand’s 2020 may have been horrible, Ardern is at the peak of his powers.
Labor’s re-election was firmly based on Ardern’s personal popularity fighting Covid-19, which has given him enormous political authority.
The obvious charms of the 40-year-old also spread across Tasmania: A Lowy Institute poll found Ardern to be Australia’s favorite politician.
Unsurprisingly, she is revered by her new group, which went from 46 to 65 members in the vote.
In October, at the first meeting of the ballroom of the new legislature, Labor MPs were forced to lean against the wall because there were not enough chairs.
Whip boss Kieran McAnulty, an affable young MP from the Wairarapa wine region who is often seen in parliament in a thong, had the floor.
“Whoever thinks you’re not here for Jacinda Ardern, raise your hand,” he asked the room.
The lack of hands in the air suggested that MPs, unlike the factionalized ranks of Australian Labor, understood their place in the pecking order.
The problem for Ms Ardern is that her hard-earned authority will be put to the test on thorny political and economic issues in 2021, and her parliamentary majority means she must have all the answers.
This summer, the problem with the barbecue plug is home prices and the growing gap between the haves and the have nots.
Homeowners have seen record capital gains this year, enjoying the benefits of vast monetary and fiscal intervention to prevent recession.
In October, the median house price in Auckland hit NZ $ 1 million for the first time, a whopping 16% this year.
In most other regions, home values have increased more than 20% in one year.
The new data shows that some of the biggest increases have occurred in the poorest places.
The number of homes sold in November was the highest in 164 months, and a Stats NZ report earlier this month found that homeownership levels were at their lowest levels in 70 years.
Naturally, renters or those who are eager to buy their first home have been infuriated by the price hikes, watching the Kiwi dream fade before their eyes.
The prime minister has acknowledged that prices “simply cannot keep rising at that rate,” but neither she nor Finance Minister Grant Robertson have yet to really understand this nettle.
COVID-19 has also affected the most vulnerable in society.
The Auckland City Mission believes that more than half a million New Zealanders experience food insecurity, without enough food to eat on a regular basis.
Emergency food grants have skyrocketed. The waiting list for social housing has skyrocketed.
All of this has kept welfare reform, and specifically the need to increase profits, near the top of the political agenda.
“There is a consensus in the social services sector that benefits are too low and should be increased,” said Janet McAllister of the Child Poverty Action Group.
“We were disappointed and concerned about the government’s response. There is nothing there.”
Following Ardern’s election victory, activists such as Auckland Action Against Poverty (AAAP) and ActionStation, a Kiwi version of GetUp, put their government to the test.
Together with more than 60 organizations, including unions, service providers, religious and women’s groups, they petitioned the government for an increase in funding for beneficiaries before Christmas.
The request was not honored.
“I don’t see how the government goes along with printing billions of dollars that make investors and owners wealthier,” says Brooke Stanley Pao of AAAP.
“If you put it in our community, of course they will spend it.”
Ms. Pao says that Ms. Ardern’s government is disconnected and “some people are really playing games with their communities.”
“Once they are in a position of power, they forget that these are the communities that they come from and that they must also serve,” he said.
The problem is also that Covid-19 and its economic monitoring threatens the very issue that Ms. Ardern cites as the reason she is in politics; child poverty.
“This government knows that it will not meet its child poverty reduction goals in its current environment due to COVID,” McAllister said.
“There was a consultation before Covid. Now it is clear.
“Rising house prices are hugely counterproductive in terms of decreasing child poverty. It will increase inequality.”
The government claims it has lifted income support, signaling hundreds of thousands of better off singles and families, but its changes have not changed course.
It remains to be seen whether Ms Ardern, with her highest authority, can find the right tonic for these political and policy puzzles in 2021.
