Ardern returns under
Less than a fortnight after her last Hamilton visit, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was back yesterday to tour transitional housing and receive an update on the city’s regional theatre build.
Hamilton’s turbid weather did not dampen the mood.
But Wednesday night’s fatal stabbing of a dairy worker in Sandringham, near Ardern’s family home, overshadowed proceedings.
The worker at the Rose Cottage Superette was stabbed in an aggravated robbery at 8.05pm on Wednesday. Ardern described the incident as an ‘‘absolute tragedy’’ and said: ‘‘I know the community and it is a tight-knit one . . .
‘‘It is devastating to see what has happened. Our job as government is to prevent these kinds of events from occurring and to support police.’’
The first stop on the PM’s itinerary was Te Rū nanga o Kirikiriroa’s new Frankton site.
In Higgins Rd and a stone’s throw away from the organisation’s headquarters, the site will provide a dozen transitional housing spaces for people aged 16-24. Complete with communal eating facilities, private bedrooms and ample off-street parking, it represents one tranche of the 313 transitional housing places the Government has afforded the city since 2017.
Waiting for Ardern was a local restaurant owner who decried the Government’s crime policy and implored her to visit a nearby business that had been