JACINDA ARDERN: ‘My biggest test yet'

After a year of tough decisions, the Prime Minister tells Emma Clifton her hopes for 2021 – and her plans to navigate us back to a different normality.

- Emma Clifton

When asked what’s giving her hope for 2021, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern doesn’t beat around the bush. “That it’s not 2020,” she says with a small grimace. “I just hope we keep proving what we can do and it gives me confidence that we’ll get through, no matter what. But I think everyone is hoping for a year that feels more up than down.”

On the day of her cover story with the Weekly, our time with the PM has slotted in between a day of appointments that started at 6am and will finish at 4am. That is the life of a leader – and when we sit down with Jacinda, it’s on a good day. There is no breaking news and no ominous 1pm broadcast that we all have to tune in to.

Her time in the top job has been marked by so many bad days – it’s been a hard few years for our small country. Last time we sat down with Jacinda, in early December 2019, the conversation was dominated by New Zealand’s response to the March 15 terrorist attacks – and then, one week after that interview, the Whakaari eruption occurred. And then, of course, came COVID-19. This time almost a year ago, Jacinda was one of many world leaders watching the outbreak unfold in China... the increasing numbers and the rising sense of, well, impending doom.