Jacinda Ardern to step down as New Zealand PM

Could you provide a link from the New Zealand high court quoting that please?

Isn't it awful horse sh!t? How would Tubs get a feel for the impact of her policies given that he lives in Ireland?

Again I'm not criticising Arden at all, I'm criticising people who praise her but who aren't humble enough to realise they haven't a clue how well or poorly she has done. She seems like a nice enough woman, but people on the other side of the world, myself included, don't know whether she has been effective or not.

The country was sealed off from the rest of the world during COVID.

That allowed them to get on with it, but even a single case triggered a national lockdown, and it happened a few times.

Isolating the country from the rest of the world is a lot easier when you are an island in the Pacific, miles from anywhere.

What they did during COVID worked for them, but would not be applicable to somewhere like Ireland.

On the controlling ideas part, would you feel the same about, say, a government trying to prevent an Islamic terrorist group from trying to recruit people online? They're just expressing their right to free speech too, right?

Regarding Adhern, the internet culture war (which probably peaked around 2017) definitely created the perfect storm for her tenure, and massively increased the amount of international exposure she received. Depending on who you talked to she was either the greatest head of state in the world or an authoritarian dictator who stripped the liberties of her people entirely. In reality she seemed a fairly competent leader who handled certain crises well (the terrorist attack on the mosque, earthquake), and others badly (the Covid restrictions).

i believe in free speech . you bring up a tricky point of Islamic terrorist group but is it incitement to harm others or just general raging.

I don't like the crime of "association" cos it sounds like thought-crime to me . Actions are different , commanding others to do physical harm is different.

She went much further than terrorism in her dislike for speech she didn't like. she was another clown that declared everything that was critical of her view on how society (esp western society) ran was "far right".

Fact Check

'Mostly False. A judge ruled the mandate unjustifiably limited some human rights of around 300 people, but he did not declare it a gross violation of human rights.'

https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/social-media-claim-tampers-with-nz-high-court-ruling/

myopic lame response. covid (and her attitude) were so much more than a packed stadium,

Woke authoritarian pain in the arse loses stomach for it once the fake sheen wears off- who’d have seen that one coming? No doubt something big lined in the NGO set for afters

The comparison with Ireland was ridiculous though. The circumstances were totally different.

Try doing the NZ thing while having an open border with the UK an hour north of Auckland. This was also at the time when UK was being run by Boris Johnson and Co and the DUP were driving NI covid policies. It’s also a border which is one of the most controversial in the world and closing it would be not only contentious but might even be physically dangerous.

Also Ireland is part of the EU - barely an hour and a bit flying time from cities like Paris, Amsterdam, integrated into the same air transit hubs, single market, common currency, freedom of movement rights had to be considered and balanced, supply chains depend on truckers and people moving around, so do many essential services.

There’s also an expectation that you can travel to / from endless European destination at the drop of a hat and very cheaply. That isn’t the case in NZ. It’s far more isolated and travel is fairly long haul. Even a flight to Australia isn’t particularly short. You’ve also family and social ties and commercial between neighbouring and easily accessible countries and all sorts of commercial, work, educational etc etc reasons people travel.

We are also a hop, skip and a jump away from and very cheaply connected to the Northeastern US, and those connections paused and the gate was closed long after the horse bolted.

They are similar populations on islands, with somewhat comparable climates, but they’re in radically different locations, circumstances, supply chains, transport networks, border control policies etc etc

I just remember a lot of smug and very unrealistic comparisons with NZ at the time.

I liked her. She seemed like a good person had an open mind and always tried to do the right thing.

No idea how she is seen in NZ or what her policies or anything else were like there nor do I really care as I do not live there, have never been and never will be. Australia is the furthest I ever went. That was far enough. I used to think Australia and NZ were just like us with the UK just a short boat trip away but then I found out it was a good 5 hour flight just from Oz to NZ I thought feck that, that's crazy.

lol locking down a country for years over a common cold.

You've obviously been living in NZ in the last few years then to be able to experience first hand how great a leader she was. What was it like there under her leadership?

Likely to be a few articles on Irish Mirror, Extra.ie and RSVP of "Ryan Tubridy pays tribute to Jacinda Ardern" by the evening.

I work in a hospital in Dublin. The missed appointments, cancer wave now and incoming, mental health department on it's knees. Many of the opinion here that it outweighs the damage done by Covid itself. Strict lockdowns were a disaster in many ways and if another pandemic came around tomorrow we wouldn't resort to such measures. The people in NZ must've been going mad.