Former NZ PM Jacinda Ardern to Extend Commitment in Fight Against Extremism

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks at the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, on Sept. 23, 2022. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will likely continue her role as a special envoy for a multilateral network dedicated to combating online extremism, AAP has reported.

This comes after current Prime Minister Chris Luxon had a discussion with Ms. Ardern.

She was appointed the special envoy for the Christchurch Call by her Labour successor, Chris Hipkins, in April 2023–just a few months after she quit politics.

The Call was a foreign policy initiative created by the New Zealand and French governments following the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019 that resulted in the death of 51 Muslim worshippers.

The network fosters collaboration between tech companies and governments to reduce online communications that might lead to terrorism.

Despite initially intending to resign from her non-paying role after the election of the right-leaning Coalition government in late 2023, Prime Minister Chris Luxon asked Ms. Ardern to stay in her role in a recent meeting.

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“We caught up in Auckland, the two of us,” he said in comments obtained by AAP.

“I wanted to understand the Christchurch Call on the work that it has undertaken ... there’s been some good work done with respect to algorithms with tech companies.

“I asked her to carry on, and she was very happy to do so.”

The prime minister also stated that his government would consider taking the Call “to the next level” in this term.

Mr. Luxon’s announcement comes a week after Ms. Ardern officially married her long-time partner, Clarke Gayford, in a ceremony in the coastal region of Hawke’s Bay.

The couple got engaged in 2019 and were supposed to get married in 2022.

However, the ceremony was cancelled due to Ms. Ardern’s “go hard, go early” approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The former prime minister’s COVID-19 strategy plunged the whole country into a level-four lockdown, the highest level, in August 2021, effectively isolating the country and sparking criticisms from the business community.

Ms. Ardern, who used to be a global icon for left-leaning politics and women’s leadership, has stayed away from the spotlight after resigning in January 2023.

In the past six months, she has been undertaking three fellowships at Harvard University.