“Somehow, the Kiwis have created a system where parliamentary democracy has found a rare graciousness beyond the raw struggle for majority power,” writes “The Gadfly” columnist ROBERT MACKLIN. 

JACINDA Ardern’s announcement of her standing down as NZ’s PM was quite a surprise. 

Kiwi journos tell us that she had lost some popularity at home; and while that might indeed be true, can you imagine a John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison or Malcolm Turnbull voluntarily departing the limelight and the levers of power, much less a Vladimir Putin or a pretend emperor Xi Jinping, just because they were on the voters’ nose?

Not, I suggest, in a million years. 

Of course, they’re all blokes, but that’s only part of it. I’m happy to accept her version that after five and a half years at the top: “I know what this job takes. And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It’s that simple.’ 

But it’s the manner of her leaving that’s truly impressive. It’s not just a gender thing, even though it’s curiously reminiscent of Ash Barty’s decision to leave tennis at the top of her game. Somehow, the Kiwis have created a system where parliamentary democracy has found a rare graciousness beyond the raw struggle for majority power. 

In this case it extends beyond the polite transfer of leadership from Ardern to Chris Hipkins (I guess that’s Kiwi for Hopkins), the kid from Hutt, which we’re told is “a lower socio-economic region in the capital’s north”. The new Deputy PM, Carmel Sepuloni, is a product of a Tongan, Samoan and Pakeha ancestry. “It’s very hard to fathom that a working-class girl from Waitara can become the deputy prime minister of NZ,” Sepuloni said.

Maybe so. But compare that with Australia, where until the Albanese government came along Aboriginal women were virtually invisible in the councils of government. Perhaps it’s significant that it was NZ that gave women the right to vote in 1893 some nine years before Australia in 1902, although women in the colony of South Australia were the first in Australia to gain the right to vote in 1894.

In each case, the British landgrab was at least in part a strategic thrust against its traditional French competitor. And in NZ’s case, this was a factor in the negotiation with the Maori in the Treaty of Waitangi. We’re still awaiting such a treaty with the Aboriginal people and Waitangi complicated the possible incorporation of the two colonies in the Australian Federation.

But we’ve always had a fascinating relationship with “Aotearoa” (which is itself an equally valid name for NZ these days). It sometimes feels as though they’re a kind of conscience against which to measure our national proclivities. Their relationships with America and China, for example, seem somehow more principled – they decline to host US nuclear warships and market Chinese gooseberries as Kiwifruit – yet they’re so nice about it they escape unscathed from both. 

At the same time, we love competing against them on the sporting arenas, be it netball where we usually win or rugby where we invariably lose. 

And we love pinching their talents and claiming them for our own, like our first Labor PM Chris Watson, who migrated here at 19; entertainers Rebecca Gibney, Keith Urban, Russell Crowe and the mighty Phar Lap; to say nothing of the mouth-watering comestibles such as the pavlova, the lamington, the Anzac biscuit and, of course, the flat white cup of coffee.

But above all, it’s the quality that Jacinda Ardern wanted most to be remembered for that seems to elude our political practitioners: “As someone who always tried to be kind,” she said.

I guess that’s it in a nutshell…or a kiwifruit.

robert@robertmacklin.com