Let Jacinda be a mum for six weeks
The champagne corks were popping at the Beehive when news broke that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had delivered a baby girl. The path to the Sandringham home of Ardern and partner Clarke Gayford will be worn thin with cards and presents from her MPs.
Ardern’s baby already has enough booties and onesies from wellwishers to have a choice of outfits every day of the week.
So the best present Labour MPs can give Ardern is time out. Which means they’re going to have to step up.
Ardern barely broke stride during her pregnancy. She couldn’t have, even if she wanted to. She’s still the only thing that stands between Labour and potential disaster.
She took charge of the M. bovis crisis, and the Government suddenly looked like it had a plan, rather than like a possum in the headlights.
She defused friction with Australia by turning up to dinner with Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and making a joke about wearing slippers.
She has been deft at managing relations with her notoriously volatile minor party ally, NZ First – like Helen Clark before her, Ardern has been generous with the quality NZ First leader Winston Peters values most, loyalty.
So long as Ardern is there to front any disasters, blunders or bloopers by her ministers – and there have been many – voters retain their confidence in her Government.
That’s not unusual, of course. John Key carried National through its rookie mistakes till his Teflon rubbed off on brand National. Before Key, National looked just as clueless and dysfunctional as Labour did in Opposition.
Trust in Clark’s leadership similarly carried the last Labour government through three terms.
Popular leaders do that. It’s what gives their MPs time to find their feet and space to make mistakes without it being too calamitous.
But Ardern’s Government is tracy.watkins@stuff.co.nz still young. And it is about to enter new territory.
They are going to find out if this Government can stand on its own feet without Ardern – or whether they’re going to have to keep calling on her star power to keep the faith with voters.
Ardern has said she will still be on call during the six-week break she has planned to spend time with Gayford and the baby.
But she will have a million things on her plate when she returns to work; like most new parents, she and Gayford will have to figure out how to juggle a baby and work, while also dealing with the all-encompassing nature of Ardern’s job, the constant travel and regular commute between their home in Auckland and her three-days-a-week base in Wellington.
Before the birth of her baby, Ardern was worried about the guilt she would feel trying to juggle the job and a baby – even asking for advice from former US President Barack Obama.
He told her to do the best she could, which is probably good advice for some but maybe not Ardern, who worries that her best is never enough.
Ardern also has the added minefield of unprecedented public scrutiny over what for others are deeply personal parenting decisions – breast or bottle, cloth nappies or disposables, choosing a name.
But the biggest minefield of all will be knowing how much to share.
New Zealand politicians have a tradition of separating their public and private lives, but Ardern’s situation is so unique the choices are not as easy.
There is such huge interest in the baby – and her unique experiences as a national leader and young mother – that she and Gayford will have to figure out how to navigate the demands of the media while keeping their personal privacy.
The first baby photograph, posted on Ardern’s Instagram page within a couple of hours of her giving birth, was about meeting the huge media demand.
More than 30 reporters and camera crews had been camped out at Auckland Hospital, and the birth was being covered by most international news agencies.
But Ardern will also be desperate to avoid being seen to use her baby for political purposes.
In those circumstances, a sixweek breather doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
So this is the time for Ardern’s A-team to shoulder the burden.
The focus has been on Peters as acting prime minister. But Labour will still need to assert itself as the major party in government. It won’t want to disappear under the weight of Peters’ charisma, or look like it is hostage to his capriciousness.
Ardern’s deputy, Kelvin Davis, is ostensibly in charge of the Labour ship while she is on maternity leave. His elevation surprised many – but he is close to Peters, and even closer to NZ First minister Shane Jones. That makes him of key importance in coalition relations. He has a pipeline into NZ First and advance warning of potential bumps.
But it is Ardern’s right-hand man, Finance Minister Grant Robertson, who will really be calling the shots in Labour in Ardern’s absence.
Robertson has not yet emerged from Ardern’s shadow as a force in his own right, as Sir Michael Cullen did under Clark, or Bill English and Steven Joyce under Key.
But Robertson was for many years the caucus’ first pick to lead the party. In fact, Ardern stood on a ticket as his deputy first time round. He is still Ardern’s closest sounding board and, like Cullen under Clark, and English under Key, can be entrusted with carrying out her agenda in her absence.
His first job should be to remind the rest of Ardern’s kitchen Cabinet – Trade Minister David Parker, Justice Minister Andrew Little, Leader of the House Chris Hipkins, and Housing Minister Phil Twyford – that they’re going to have to run a much tighter ship for the next six weeks.
If they pull that off, it could even be the gift that keeps on giving for Ardern.