PM Jacinda Ardern Set For Return to Duties

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is set for return to duties. It will have been almost six weeks since Ms Ardern arrived at Auckland Hospital to have her baby.

Acting PM Winston Peters said Ms Ardern would be based in Auckland on Thursday and Friday before heading to Wellington this weekend to settle her family into Premier House.

He said the Prime Minister would then be based in Wellington for the following two weeks while Parliament sat with some day trips away. Ms Ardern has been on maternity leave for six weeks following the birth of her daughter Neve in June. Yesterday was Mr Peters’ last day chairing the Cabinet and also holding the weekly PM post-cabinet press conference.

He was asked for his thoughts on his time in charge of the country.

“Well the downside, if you ask me about the hits and misses, the misses were where I had to read so much comment from journalists about the disaster that was about to befall them,” he said.

“I suppose the hits are the things for example like the nurses strikes, which I believe we have made a lot of progress on and all the other items we’ve announced, not the least of which of course is the first tranche of the Reserve Bank legislation changes which are coming and which is a huge and serious issue for this country.”

Ms Ardern posted a live Facebook stream to give an update on her and her baby.