Tag Archives: Jacinda Ardern

Chris Hipkins, who played a leading role in New Zealand’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, emerged Saturday as the successor to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Hipkins is the only candidate nominated to lead the Labour Party following Ardern’s shock resignation earlier this week. “I’m humbled and honored to be the …

New Zealand politicians on Thursday passed a law that makes plotting a terrorist attack a crime, fixing a legal loophole that was exposed earlier this month by a violent knife attack. The new law had been months in the planning but was hurried through Parliament after an extremist inspired by …

New Zealand police on Friday shot dead an Islamic State-inspired attacker after he injured six people in a supermarket knife rampage, despite round-the-clock surveillance by undercover officers. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she was “gutted” the man, a Sri Lankan national, had managed to carry out his “hateful” assault even …

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern put the nation under strict lockdown on Tuesday after one new case of the coronavirus was reported in its largest city of Auckland, the country’s first in six months. All of New Zealand will be in lockdown for three days from Wednesday while Auckland …

New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern on Monday announced a hastily convened extraordinary meeting of APEC leaders aimed at improving the Asia-Pacific region’s response to COVID-19 and its economic impact. Prime Minister Ardern is scheduled to host the annual 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit online in November but called an additional …

About 30,000 nurses in New Zealand walked off their jobs on Wednesday in a nationwide eight-hour strike after negotiations with the government for better pay and working conditions failed. The strike action came after the New Zealand Nurses Organisation rejected a 1.4% pay hike proposed by the District Health Board …

The leaders of Australia and New Zealand are holding their first face-to-face meeting since the coronavirus outbreak prompted both countries to close their borders. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison arrived in the tourist resort of Queenstown for an overnight visit on Sunday. He greeted his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern …

New Zealand on Thursday lifted welfare benefit rates and promised billions of dollars more towards addressing rising inequality in its annual budget, as it predicted smaller deficits and faster economic recovery from COVID-19. The budget for the 2021 fiscal year allocated funds towards housing, healthcare, education, and infrastructure, while also …

The prime minister postponed the country’s general election on Monday by a month to Oct. 17 as the city of Auckland remains in lockdown due to a new outbreak of the coronavirus. Jacinda Ardern has been under pressure to put off the polls as political parties said it was impossible …

New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters called on Sunday for a delay to the planned September general election, given an abrupt reappearance of COVID-19 in the country, increasing pressure on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to postpone the vote. Last week’s resurgence of the infections in Auckland – after the …

The party of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has extended its lead in New Zealand’s latest opinion poll, putting the charismatic 40-year-old leader on track for a comfortable victory in the elections in September. A Newshub-Reid Research Poll released late on Sunday showed the popularity of Ardern’s Labour Party rose to …

An unarmed police officer was killed and another was seriously injured after being shot during a routine traffic stop in New Zealand on Friday, the authorities have said. The incident took place in Auckland, the country’s largest city, on Friday morning after the officers tried to stop a vehicle of …

New Zealand’s prime minister has assigned a top military leader to oversee the nation’s border checks after two women who had flown from London were released from quarantine before being tested for coronavirus. Jacinda Ardern called the blunder an “unacceptable failure” and said: “It should never have happened and it …

New Zealanders will be able to go fishing, surfing, hunting, and hiking this week for the first time in more than a month as the country begins to ease its way out of a strict lockdown. Around 400,000 people will return to work after the country shifts its alert level …

The main suspect in the Christchurch attacks in March has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Brenton Tarrant is charged with the murder of 51 people, 40 counts of attempted murder and one terrorism charge in New Zealand’s deadliest peacetime mass shooting. Appearing via video link from prison, the 28-year-old …

Five global technology companies have pledged to limit terrorist material online. Facebook, Amazon, Google, Twitter, and Microsoft will develop shared tools to detect and remove terrorist or extremist content among other measures. The pledge was made at a Paris summit, which was called after the terror attack in Christchurch, New …

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres aims to draw up a global plan to fight a rising tide of hate speech, he said on Tuesday, during a visit to a New Zealand mosque where dozens of worshippers were killed in a mass shooting in March. Guterres visited the Al Noor Mosque …