NZ opposition leader launches drive for ‘brave’ tackling of inequality

WELLINGTON: New Zealand’s 37year-old opposition leader, Jacinda Ardern, officially launched her election campaign yesterday, pledging her government would be ‘bold’, ‘brave’ and tackle rising inequality should it win next month’s election.

Ardern is riding a surge in the polls just three weeks after her appointment to the leadership of the centre-left Labour Party opened up what had been predicted to be a straightforward re- election of the incumbent centre-right government, which has held power for a decade.

New Zealand has been buoyed by some of the strongest economic growth among advanced countries in recent years.

But Ardern said, for many, pay rises were not keeping pace with a rising cost of living and the gap between rich and poor was getting more entrenched.

She said she would never question the importance of a strong economy but the difference between the major parties was what ‘we use as the signs of success’.

“I will always maintain that a successful economy is one that serves its people. Not the other way around,” she said in Auckland.

“And that means judging success differently.”

Ardernspokeoftheachievements of former Labour prime ministers and the issues that defined them, from free education to the creation of the welfare state.

“For me it’s simple: I want to build a country where every child grows up free from poverty and is filled with hope and opportunity,” she said.

Ardern’s speech at the Auckland Town Hall also focused on the environment, saying New Zealand’s rivers were ‘dying’ with the majority ‘almost too dirty to swim in’.

She said climate change was the ‘challenge that defines my generation’.

“This is my generation’s nuclearfree moment, and I am determined that we will tackle it head on,” Ardern said. — Reuters