Politics

The NSW Premier Tried To Roast New Zealand For Electing A Labour PM And It Did Not Go Well

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by Osman Faruqi  20 October 2017
New Zealand

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Yesterday, after weeks of post-election negotiations, New Zealanders finally got confirmation on who their next Prime Minister would be. Labour’s Jacinda Ardern will form government with the support of New Zealand First and the Greens, ending the conservative National Party’s nine-year reign.

Ardern is New Zealand’s third female PM and the second youngest to hold the office. She’s also the first to ever DJ a set at Laneway.

Ardern’s popularity had skyrocketed in the weeks leading to the election, and plenty of Kiwis are pretty excited about her progressive vision for the country.

Someone who quite clearly hasn’t caught Jacindamania is NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. It’s traditional for political leaders to congratulate and welcome newly elected colleagues from around the world, and given Australia’s close relationship to New Zealand it might have been fair to expect the same thing this time around. But that’s… not what happened, at least in NSW.

Minutes after Ardern was confirmed as New Zealand’s new PM, Berejiklian took to Twitter and Facebook to invite Kiwis to move to NSW to experience the state’s “great infrastructure” and “growing economy”.

I’m sorry Premier, but this is a pretty classic example of totally misreading the room. Ardern isn’t New Zealand’s version of Donald Trump. There isn’t going to be some mass exodus of Kiwis fleeing the country because they’re terrified of Labour’s plans to implement free education, build affordable housing, reduce child poverty and just generally make the country a bit more caring.

It didn’t take people long to point out that New Zealand has a lot of great policies Australia is lacking.

Berejiklian copped a lot of criticism on Facebook as well, with commenters pointing out the high cost of living, privatisation of public transport and political corruption are all fantastics reasons for New Zealanders to stay exactly where they are.

Thankfully the rest of Australia’s political leaders have either stayed quiet or warmly congratulated Ardern.