NZ Prime Minister expecting f irst baby in June
RUNNING a country would be more than enough for most people to be getting on with. But New Zealand’s new prime minister Jacinda Ardern will be taking on an extra responsibility – having her first child at 37.
The Labour politician announced her pregnancy yesterday, revealing the baby is due in June – eight months after she took office.
She said she only discovered that she was pregnant during protracted talks to form a coalition government and six days before she was named as prime minister on October 19.
Despite her happy news, some New Zealanders were critical on social media. Ben Daniels tweeted: ‘If this woman is decent and loving she will quit her job for a few years to be fully present to her child.’
Miss Ardern says she plans to take six weeks off, during which time her outspoken deputy prime minister Winston Peters will run the country.
When she returns to work her husband Clarke Gayford, a fishing enthusiast who presents a TV show called Fish Of The Day, will be a stay-athome father.
‘As many couples do in the early stages, we kept it to ourselves,’ she said at a news conference with her husband yesterday.
She admitted there would be ‘lots of questions’ from the Kiwi electorate but insisted: ‘We have a plan all ready to go.’
Miss Ardern revealed that the baby was unexpected because the couple had been told by doctors that she could not become pregnant without ‘help’.
‘I fully intend to be contactable and available throughout the six-week period when needed,’ she said. ‘I will make arrangements for appropriate ministers to act in my other portfolios over the six weeks I am away from parliament.’
She added: ‘I am not the first woman to work and have a baby. I know these are special circumstances but there are many women who have done it well before I have.’
She told journalists outside her Auckland home: ‘Clarke and I are privileged to be in the position where Clarke can stay home to be our primary care-giver.
‘Knowing that so many parents juggle the care of their new babies, we consider ourselves to be very lucky.
‘Clarke and I have always been clear we wanted to be parents but had been told we would need help for that to happen. That’s made this news a fantastic surprise.’
Miss Ardern said she and Mr Gayford knew the baby’s sex but would keep it to themselves. She added that she would no longer be able to attend the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in May.
Asked how she managed to set up a government while suffering morning sickness, Miss Ardern replied: ‘It’s what ladies do.’
She revealed that no one involved in the talks to form a coalition with Mr Peters’s New Zealand First party had picked up on her pregnancy.
Earlier, in a post on Twitter, the prime minister said: ‘Clarke and I are really excited that in June our team will expand from two to three, and that we’ll be joining the many parents out there who wear two hats. I’ll be prime minister and a mum, and Clarke will be “first man of fishing” and stay-at-home dad.’
Miss Ardern will be only the second world leader to give birth in office. In 1990, Benazir Bhutto had a daughter while Pakistan’s prime minister.
She is New Zealand’s youngest prime minister in more than a century and the third woman to lead the country.
The announcement of her pregnancy was welcomed by Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s PM, who said: ‘When we spoke this morning you sounded more excited than you did when you won the election.’