Harry’s role in PM’s success
It could be said that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern owes much of her success to the political lessons she learned in New Plymouth. And it would be partly true. During the election campaign Ardern acknowledged she started her fledgling political career in New Plymouth, working for then MP Harry Duynhoven.
‘‘It was the first place I ever campaigned for the Labour Party,’’ she said. ‘‘I voted for the first time here. I know there’s a really great team here,’’ she told Stuff media at the time.
Duynhoven is too modest to claim any real influence in her career, but he nevertheless remembers her well from their lengthy association, which started back in 1996.
‘‘Jacinda was still a student then and she volunteered to work for me in the 1996 and1999 election campaigns at the suggestion of one of my strong supporters, her aunt Marie Ardern.
‘‘Later on when she was doing her degree she was a volunteer intern in my Parliamentary office and in 2002 when I became Associate Minister of Energy she became Energy Private Secretary.
‘‘She was a tremendous success in that role and her obvious ability was noticed upstairs and after a couple of years she was invited to join Prime Minister Helen Clark’s staff.’’
Duynhoven said there were some humorous moments when Adern was Energy Private Secretary. ’’From time to time Crown Minerals would organise the minister to visit various projects, including mines, oil wells and offshore installations. The officials arranged everything and in the correspondence (I discovered later) was ‘‘Minister Duynhoven will be accompanied by Energy Private Secretary J.Ardern’’.
‘‘Apparently no woman had been in this role before, so on one occasion there was quite a bit of confusion when the mining company realised the young woman with the minister was indeed intending to accompany him into the mine underground and some suitable arrangements for changing into overalls etc were needed!
‘‘Jacinda took it all in her stride, with good humour.’’
He admits he underestimated just how far she would go in politics.
‘‘I thought she would later in life she would probably become a very able MP but I didn’t have any inkling I was helping to mould a future Prime Minister.’’