Jacinda Ardern declined interviews with Newstalk ZB broadcaster Mike Hosking after her first term because they considered them to have become disrespectful, says Andrew Campbell, the former prime minister’s chief press secretary.
In recent years, other politicians have also been selective. Christopher Luxon cancelled his weekly TVNZ Breakfast slot, David Seymour boycotted Morning Report for a few years (before recently returning) and Midday Report’s Guyon Espiner says Winston Peters won’t come on his show.
Campbell, who has just released a book about his time with the former prime minister called In The Room, said it’s positive that politicians “are so available” to the media, but access should come with mutual respect.
“It can be hard. It can be challenging. But I think the difference between the likes of yourself (RNZ’s Midday Report host Guyon Espiner) and others who gave very hard interviews was that in the end, it actually just became disrespectful.
“Hosking could not hide his disdain for her and that came through in his interviews, in my opinion. I think that's the problem.”
Campbell believed continuing to appear on the programme risked condoning that behaviour.
“I don't think anyone needs to be treated like that. I think it was disrespectful. And that was the main reason we stopped doing it.”
NZME were contacted for comment.
Dealing with hate
Campbell came up with the phrase “the team of five million” to encourage New Zealand to stick with its Covid response. He arranged the media strategy that saw Ardern do the 1pm briefings during the lockdowns.
He hoped In The Room would give the public a glimpse into the communications behind major political decisions.
He described Ardern as the most consequential New Zealand prime minister in generations, making calls that were not only significant domestically but posed a “real potential threats to New Zealand’s reputation”.
“No other prime minister in my lifetime or living memory has had to make the number of decisions that affected so many people in such a short period of time,” he said.
However the decisions that made Ardern an effective leader, also turned her into a “polarising” figure, he said.
Addressing what he described as a “holy trinity of the issues” circulating in online right-wing communities – legalising abortion, banning semi-automatic weapons and vaccine campaigns – brought a flood of hate and vitriol. Death threats more than tripled during her time in office, he wrote.
“The other thing I also do point out is, from my perspective, it is the first time a New Zealand prime minister has come under opposition in a transnational way. Some of the stuff that was coming in was coming in from overseas. That's quite unusual. We haven't had that in our politics before.”
When Chris Hipkins became prime minister, social media teams reported anti-vaccine rage had subsided, Campbell wrote. While he believed misogyny played a role in Ardern being targeted, he said it was only part of the story.
“I think part of the fact that she was seen internationally during that period as a bit of a beacon for the progressive left did make her both an international and a local target.”
Ardern largely stayed silent in response - Campbell said that was her preference. But he was worried about the impact on the spread of disinformation online and threats to democracy.
“She never wanted it to be about herself… I think she made a very conscious decision as the prime minister all the way through, sometimes to my opposition, because I felt like I had to do my job with one hand tied behind my back, because she only wanted to be positive.
“She did not want to play a victim or talk about negative things or stuff like that.
“So as a result, certain things that we could have been saying, and perhaps should have been saying at the time, we didn't. She didn't want to kind of call into question where some of the disinformation was coming from, nor find structural ways to address it.”
2026 campaign
Campbell admitted he had not followed this year's election campaign closely, but believed politics needed more positivity.
“If you think, you know, Jacinda in 2017, it was just ‘let's do this’, relentlessly positive.
“And actually other campaigns around the world that have captured imagination tend to go there. This is a very negative campaign. And as a result, when it's negative, it kind of feels a bit small minded.”
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