Jacinda Ardern Net Worth 2023, Salary, Biography, Age, Family, Husband, Children

Read the complete write-up of Jacinda Ardern net worth, salary, biography, age, height, family, husband, children, leadership style, facts as well as other information you need to know.

Introduction

Jacinda Ardern is a New Zealand politician. She has served since 2017 as the 40th prime minister of New Zealand and as leader of the Labour Party until announcing her resignation in January 2023. She was first elected to the House of Representatives as a list MP in 2008 and has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Mount Albert since March 2017.

Ardern was first elected as an MP in the 2008 general election when Labour lost power after nine years. She was later elected to represent the Mount Albert electorate in a by-election in February 2017.

She was unanimously elected as deputy leader of the Labour Party on 1 March 2017, following the resignation of Annette King. Just five months later, with an election due, Labour’s leader Andrew Little resigned after a historically low opinion polling result for the party, with Ardern elected unopposed as the leader in his place.

Jacinda led her party to gain 14 seats at the 2017 general election on 23 September, winning 46 seats to the National Party’s 56. After a period of negotiations, New Zealand First chose to enter a minority coalition government with Labour, supported by the Green Party, with Ardern as prime minister; she was sworn in by the governor-general on 26 October 2017. She became the world’s youngest female head of government at age 37. Ardern later became the world’s second elected head of government to give birth while in office (after Benazir Bhutto) when her daughter was born on 21 June 2018.

Ardern describes herself as a social democrat and a progressive. The Sixth Labour Government has focused particularly on the New Zealand housing crisis, child poverty, and social inequality. In March 2019, she led the country through the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque shootings, rapidly introducing strict gun laws in response, and throughout 2020 she directed the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which had been praised and endorsed worldwide.

Jacinda Ardern led the Labour Party to a historic victory in the 2020 general election, gaining an outright majority of 65 seats in Parliament, the first time this has happened since the introduction of proportional representation in 1996.

Early life

Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern was born on July 26, 1980 (age 42 years) in Hamilton, New Zealand. She grew up as a Mormon in Morrinsville and Murupara, where her father, Ross Ardern, worked as a police officer, and her mother, Laurell Ardern, worked as a school catering assistant.

She studied at Morrinsville College, where she was the student representative on the school’s board of trustees. Whilst still at school she found her first job, working at a local fish-and-chip shop. She then attended the University of Waikato, graduating in 2001 with a Bachelor of Communication Studies (BCS) in politics and public relations.

Ardern was brought into politics by her aunt, Marie Ardern, a longstanding member of the Labour Party, who recruited the teenaged Ardern to help her with campaigning for New Plymouth MP Harry Duynhoven during his re-election campaign at the 1999 general election.

Political Career

Ardern joined the Labour Party at the age of 17 and became a senior figure in the Young Labour sector of the party. After graduating from university, she spent time working in the offices of Phil Goff and of Helen Clark as a researcher. After a period of time in New York City, US, where she volunteered at a soup kitchen and worked on a workers’ rights campaign.

She moved to London, England where she became a senior policy adviser in an 80-person policy unit of British prime minister Tony Blair. (She did not meet Blair in London, but later at an event in New Zealand in 2011 she questioned him about the invasion of Iraq.) Ardern was also seconded to the UK Home Office to help with a review of policing in England and Wales.

On 30 January 2008, at 27, Ardern was elected president of the International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY) at their world congress in the Dominican Republic for a two-year term until 2010. The role saw her spend time in several countries, including Jordan, Israel, Algeria and China.

Ahead of the 2008 election, Ardern was ranked 20th on Labour’s party list. This was a very high placement for someone who was not already a sitting MP and virtually assured her of a seat in Parliament. Accordingly, Ardern returned from London to campaign full-time. She also became Labour’s candidate for the safe National electorate of Waikato.

Ardern was unsuccessful in the electorate vote, but her high placement on Labour’s party list allowed her to enter Parliament as a list MP. Upon election, she became the youngest sitting MP in Parliament, succeeding fellow Labour MP Darren Hughes, and remained the youngest MP until the election of Gareth Hughes on 11 February 2010.

Opposition leader Phil Goff promoted Ardern to the front bench, naming her Labour’s spokesperson for Youth Affairs and as an associate spokesperson for Justice (Youth Affairs).

She made regular appearances on TVNZ’s Breakfast programme as part of the “Young Guns” feature, in which she appeared alongside National MP (and future National leader) Simon Bridges.

Ardern contested the seat of Auckland Central for Labour in the 2011 general election, standing against incumbent National MP Nikki Kaye for National and Greens candidate Denise Roche. Despite targeting Green voters to vote strategically for her, she lost to Kaye by 717 votes. However, she returned to Parliament via the party list, on which she was ranked 13th. Ardern maintained an office within the electorate while she was a list MP based in Auckland Central.

After Goff resigned from the Party leadership following his defeat in the 2011 election, Ardern supported David Shearer over David Cunliffe. She was elevated to the fourth-ranking position in his Shadow Cabinet on 19 December 2011, becoming a spokesperson for social development under the new leader.

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Jacinda Ardern stood again in Auckland Central at the 2014 general election. She again finished second though increased her own vote and reduced Kaye’s majority from 717 to 600. Ranked 5th on Labour’s list Ardern was still returned to Parliament where she became Shadow spokesperson for Justice, Children, Small Business, and Arts & Culture under new leader Andrew Little.

Nomination

Ardern put forward her name for the Labour nomination for the Mount Albert by-election to be held in February 2017 following the resignation of David Shearer on 8 December 2016. When nominations for the Labour Party closed on 12 January 2017, Ardern was the only nominee and was elected unopposed. On 21 January, Ardern participated in the 2017 Women’s March, a worldwide protest in opposition to Donald Trump, the newly inaugurated president of the United States. She was confirmed as Labour’s candidate at a meeting on 22 January. Ardern won a landslide victory, gaining 77 per cent of votes cast in the preliminary results.

Following her win in the by-election, Ardern was unanimously elected as deputy leader of the Labour Party on 7 March 2017, following the resignation of Annette King who was intending to retire at the next election. Ardern’s vacant list seat was taken by Raymond Huo.

Leader of the Opposition

On 1 August 2017, just seven weeks before the 2017 general election, Ardern assumed the position of leader of the Labour Party, and consequently became leader of the Opposition, following the resignation of Andrew Little. Little stood down due to the party’s historically low polling. Ardern was unanimously confirmed in an election to choose a new leader at a caucus meeting the same day. At 37, Ardern became the youngest leader of the Labour Party in its history.

She is also the second female leader of the party after Helen Clark. According to Ardern, Little had previously approached her on 26 July and said he thought she should take over as Labour leader then, as he was of the opinion he could not turn things around for the party, although Ardern declined and told him to “stick it out”.

At her first press conference after her election as leader, she said that the forthcoming election campaign would be one of “relentless positivity”. Immediately following her appointment, the party was inundated with donations by the public, reaching NZ$700 per minute at its peak. After Ardern’s ascension to the leadership, Labour rose dramatically in opinion polls.

By late August the party had reached 43 per cent in the Colmar Brunton poll (having been 24 per cent under Little’s leadership) as well as managing to overtake National in opinion polls for the first time in over a decade. Detractors noted that her positions were substantially similar to those of Andrew Little, and suggested that Labour’s sudden increase in popularity were due to her youth and good looks.

In mid-August, Ardern stated that a Labour government would establish a tax working group to explore the possibility of introducing a capital gains tax but ruled out taxing family homes. In response to negative publicity, Ardern abandoned plans to introduce a capital gains tax during the first term of a Labour government. Finance spokesperson Grant Robertson later clarified that Labour would not introduce new taxes until after the 2020 election. The policy shift accompanied strident allegations by Minister of Finance Steven Joyce that Labour had an $11.7 billion “hole” in its tax policy.

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The Labour and Green parties’ proposed water and pollution taxes also generated criticism from farmers. On 18 September 2017, the farming lobby group Federated Farmers staged a protest against the taxes in Ardern’s hometown of Morrinsville. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters attended the protest to campaign but was jeered at by the farmers because they suspected he was also in favour of the taxes. During the protest, one farmer displayed a sign calling Ardern a “pretty communist”. This was criticised as misogynistic by former Prime Minister Helen Clark.

In the final days of the general election campaign, the opinion polls narrowed, with National taking a slight lead.

Honours

Ardern was one of fifteen women selected to appear on the cover of the September 2019 issue of British Vogue, by guest editor Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Forbes magazine placed her at 38 among the 100 most powerful women in the world in 2019.

She was included in the 2019 Time 100 list and shortlisted for Time’s 2019 Person of the Year. The magazine later incorrectly speculated that she might win the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize among a listed six candidates, for her handling of the Christchurch mosque shootings.

In 2020, she was listed by Prospect as the second-greatest thinker for the COVID-19 era. On 19 November 2020, Ardern was awarded Harvard University’s 2020 Gleitsman International Activist Award; she contributed the US$150,000 (NZ$216,000) prize money to New Zealanders studying at the university.

In 2021, New Zealand zoologist Steven A. Trewick named the flightless wētā species Hemiandrus Jacinda in honour of Ardern. A spokesperson for Ardern said that a beetle (Mecodema Jacinda), a lichen, and an ant had also been named after her.

In mid-May 2021, Fortune magazine gave Ardern the top spot on their list of the world’s greatest leaders, citing her leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as her handling of the Christchurch mosque shootings and the 2019 Whakaari/White Island eruption.

Leadership Style

Jacinda Ardern has described herself as a social democrat, a progressive, a republican and a feminist, citing Helen Clark as a political hero. She has described the extent of child poverty and homelessness in New Zealand as a “blatant failure” of capitalism.

Ardern advocates a lower rate of immigration, suggesting a drop of around 20,000–30,000. Calling it an “infrastructure issue”, she argues, “there hasn’t been enough planning about population growth, we haven’t necessarily targeted our skill shortages properly”. However, she wants to increase the intake of refugees.

Ardern believes the retention or abolition of Māori electorates should be decided by Māori, stating, “[Māori] has not raised the need for those seats to go, so why would we ask the question?” She supports compulsory teaching of the Māori language in schools.

In September 2017, Ardern said she wanted New Zealand to have a debate on removing the monarch of New Zealand as its head of state. During her announcement on 24 May 2021 of the appointment of Dame Cindy Kiro as the next Governor-General of New Zealand, Ardern said that she believed that New Zealand would become a Republic within her lifetime.

She has, however, met regularly with members of the Royal Family over the years and said that “My particular views do not change the respect that I have for Her Majesty and for her family and for the work that they’ve done for New Zealand. I think you can hold both views, and I do.”

Ardern has spoken in support of same-sex marriage, and she voted for the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act 2013 which legalised it. In 2018, she became the first New Zealand prime minister to march in a pride parade. Ardern supported liberalising abortion law by removing abortion from the Crimes Act 1961. In March 2020, she voted for the Abortion Legislation Act that amends the law to decriminalise abortion.

Referring to New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy, she described taking action on climate change as “my generation’s nuclear-free moment”. Ardern has voiced support for a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. She has condemned the death of Palestinians during protests at the Gaza border.

Ardern voted Yes in favour of decriminalising cannabis in the 2020 New Zealand cannabis referendum, though she would not reveal her position on decriminalisation until after the referendum had concluded.

Religion

Ardern was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New Zealand, Ardern left the church in 2005 because, she said, it conflicted with her personal views, in particular her support for gay rights. In January 2017, Ardern identified as agnostic, saying “I can’t see myself being a member of an organised religion again”. As prime minister in 2019, she met the president of LDS Church, Russell M. Nelson.

Husband

Jacinda Ardern is married to Clarke Gayford. Ardern’s partner is a television presenter. The couple first met in 2012 when they were introduced by mutual friend Colin Mathura-Jeffree, a New Zealand television host and model, but they did not spend time together until Gayford contacted Ardern regarding a controversial Government Communications Security Bureau bill. On 3 May 2019, it was reported that Ardern was engaged to be married to Gayford.

Baby

On 19 January 2018, Ardern announced that she was expecting her first child in June, making her New Zealand’s first prime minister be pregnant in office. Ardern was admitted to Auckland City Hospital on 21 June 2018, and gave birth to a girl the same day, becoming only the second elected head of government to give birth while in office (after Benazir Bhutto in 1990). On 24 June, Ardern revealed her daughter’s given name as Neve Te Aroha. Neve is an anglicised form of the Irish name Niamh, meaning ‘bright’; Aroha is Māori for ‘love’, and Te Aroha is a mountain in the Kaimai Range, near Ardern’s home town of Morrinsville.

Jacinda Ardern net worth

How much is Jacinda Ardern worth? Jacinda Ardern net worth is estimated at around $1.5 which makes her not a millionaire. Her salary is around $471,049. Her major source of income is from her private businesses. She is one of the most powerful women in the world. Her successful career has earned her some of the luxurious lifestyles and fancy trips.