A heart-warming tale from New Zealand

Having just read an interesting and thoughful piece on whether one can be a good president if one isn’t a good person, it made me stop and think about the same question in a New Zealand context.

The reality is that politics is very different here. Without going into too much depth, we went through a major transition in 1993, albeit accidentally.

We had used the British parliamentary system of First Past The Post where the country was divided into seats in which stood party members and independents. The vote was very much electorate by electorate and whichever party had the most electorates at the end became the government. Unlike Britain, we abolished the Upper House a long time ago and so Parliament is the most powerful force in the country.

The change was to a Mixed Member Proportional system where we have a set number of electorates as in FPP, but any votes cast for small parties aggregated to a national total. Previously, a vote cast for a small party was generally wasted because they never accrued enough votes to enter parliament except in extraordinary circumstances where a particular candidate might have great popularity in the electorate they stood in. But, they had no power in a parliament of over 100 seats.

Now, as long as a party either wins an electorate seat or gains a total of 5% of the vote across all electorates, they gain representation in the parliament. An example of the difference was an FPP election in the late 1970’s where a small party called Social Credit gained 24% of the total vote but no representation because only winning seats mattered and their vote was spread across the country. The Green party gained 7% of the vote at the last election and have 8 seats in the parliament. The same applies for other small parties, proportional to their total vote, but the traditionally largest small party didn’t win a seat or get 5% and have departed the parliament, possibly permanently.

But I digress. We don’t have presidents here that the public vote for either directly or indirectly as in USA. We vote for parties and individuals to sit in parliament and the party with the highest vote share selects the Prime Minister from amongst their caucus. We know who the PM might be because we know who the party parliamentary leaders are going into the cycle.

We entered uncharted territory in 2020. COVID has shifted the landscape. I watched from the opposite side of the world as Donald Trump seemed to tear the possibility that is USA apart by brutally dismantling the incredibly complex way American politics works. It was like watching a bulldozer.

Division and fear and blame and suspicion of the fundamentals of what a society is seemed to be the currency and the long term effects are unknown but the possibilities are potentially terrifying.

So to New Zealand. First up, I need to declare that as the citizen of a small and globally insignificant nation, my experience of the pressures and tensions on major countries and their leaders is not known to me.

But at the last election we got a Labour government that can govern alone. In an MMP parliament, this is almost unheard of. Almost always there needs to be a coalition built to support the biggest party and the small parties extract concessions for their most revered policies.

What made it especially unique was that we got a Prime Minister who is a young mum with a boyfriend. Jacinda Ardern has gone on to be the darling on many international stages in ways that wouldn’t have happened if she had been a traditional middle aged middle class white male.

But she didn’t gain her profile just because she was young (37) or a mum or unmarried. She gained her profile because she has a quality that resonates for people. She is “nice” and she believes passionately in social cohesion and making life better and fairer for all. She kisses babies because they are lovely to kiss, not because it looks good in photos.

She admits when she has gotten it wrong. When her Ministers make mistakes, she doesn’t make a public spectacle of shaming them. She is a leader who wants her people to be their best selves and coaches and guides them. If she needs to sack someone for an unforgivable mess up it is not a blood sport. As much as possible, she tries to allow people to retain their dignity.

She is now engaged to her boyfriend and he hosts a fishing show on TV. She came from modest rural town beginnings and had an after school and holiday job at a local fish and chip shop where she still visits when she goes home. This is a very real human being.

When COVID hit, Jacinda made it a priority to counsel the nation to “be kind”. She talks about New Zealand as the team of five million. Be kind and team of 5m might sound trite and bumper sticker, but what they represent is the reinforcement that we are all in this together. It has had an incredibly binding experience for most of the population.

We have a significant Polynesian population who belong to churches that have less than enlightened ideas about vaccination and in the last week we have had an isolated outbreak in our biggest city, Auckland, and it is in this community that it has happened.

It has caused a groundswell of people to express exasperation at the stupidity of a community not “believing” in vaccination and the sheer selfishness of putting everyone else abiding by the rules a risk.

Jacinda has shown some frustration at the extra strain this has put on the community by having to re-impose a lockdown but has reminded us that by demonising people we only drive them further into their belief systems.

This Prime Minister never criticises or belittles people even under extreme pressure. She is decent and lives her values and calls on the people around her to step up and be decent too.

If this sounds hagiographic, I don’t apologise. These are dark times and I cannot begin to describe how nourishing and reinforcing to the mind and soul it is to have a leader who genuinely cares about her people.

So to the question of whether you can be a good president if you aren’t a good person. The truth is, I don’t know. I think America has demonstrated graphically that being a bad person at a time when love, compassion and unity are desperately needed is deeply corrosive and negative.

I think New Zealand has demonstrated that having a kind, decent, honest and compassionate leader in a terrifying crisis has been extraordinarily beneficial.

Different times call for different qualities, but I think Jacinda Ardern is a leader for the ages and history will treat her as a woman of consequence who steered us through a terrible time with warmth and common sense.

Co-incidentally, my business is run on two simple values — be better people and make things better. Bumper sticker bullshit or a solid place to stand in a very unsettled and wounded world? I have to believe that decency and generosity will trump selfishness every time. Well, that’s where I stand and if I get flattened by a bulldozer, so be it.