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NEW ZEALAND PRIME Minister and new mum Jacinda Ardern, only the second world leader to give birth while in office, ended her maternity leave today and immediately announced baby Neve will accompany her to the United Nations next month.
After six weeks bonding with her daughter, the 38-year-old said she was looking forward to getting back to work.
“Absolutely,” she told TVNZ as she marked her first day back with a round of media interviews.
I feel like I’ve been gifted by the New Zealand public, by my team and with the help of the acting prime minister this time to be with Neve, which has been wonderful. But of course, this is a unique circumstance and I’m really very keen to get back to work.
Ardern has opted to work from home in Auckland until the weekend when she will relocate to the capital Wellington.
She said that while she and partner Clarke Gayford want to protect the baby’s privacy “at the same time we want to be a family and I do a very public job”.
Gayford, a television fishing show host, plans to be a stay-at-home dad and the main caregiver for their daughter.
Ardern told stuff.co.nz they would travel as a family to the United Nations in New York, where she is due to speak.
“Perhaps fittingly the programme for (the UN meeting) is focused on things like women, children, and climate change – very strong themes in those areas,” she said.
Rather than be concerned with affairs of state while on maternity leave, Ardern was “worrying about feeding, sleeping, and nappies and there’s this overlay of (public) interest in what is actually something that is mundane”.
Something that every parent has gone through and yet I absolutely accept this layer of interest because it’s not our normal yet. But one day it will be.
The birth capped an eventful year for Ardern, who became prime minister in October just three months after taking charge of the Labour Party as it languished in the polls.
While she announced her pregnancy five months before the birth, Benazir Bhutto – the first world leader to have a child while in office – told almost no one she was pregnant until her daughter was born in January 1990.
Unlike Ardern, who was able to take maternity leave, the Pakistani prime minister underwent a caesarean section and then returned to work.
During Ardern’s absence, her deputy Winston Peters led the country. She resumed control when he left overnight for an ASEAN foreign ministers summit in Singapore.
Ardern said she will be “hitting the ground running” when she turns up at the office on Monday.
Her first week back will focus on issues that “really matter to me”, including mental health, the environment, trade-related affairs and an “employment-related announcement”.
With the veteran 73-year-old Peters at the helm, affairs of state ticked over quietly although business unease continues to quietly simmer in the background with a growing number of surveys showing a lack of confidence in the centre-left government.
Ardern has said she is keen to work with business leaders and has been active in steps to rescue the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, with her government also pushing an aggressive trade agenda.
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Makes no difference who you vote for, You still get the WEF government
@087 bed: WEF? – World Economic Forum?
@087 bed: see https://conspiracychart.com for all things NWO, chemtrails, chipping, and replacement theories.
@9QRixo8H: Are you a qualified tool or still an apprentice, All you do here is push disinformation in the comments.
I wonder if the same secret service would protect Netanyahou…. That could solve a lot of problems
@Dominic Leleu: and potential assassins should be vetted by the NRA to ensure a more positive outcome. Might be an idea to invite putin, xi, orban and others
@Alan: agreed
When thinking about Simon Coveney , this a verbatim quote
Owning your own home is not a bad aspiration, but if there was more certainty in the rental market in Ireland, you would see more people choosing to rent and to invest in rental property,” said Coveney.
“The attitude towards long-term rental is changing in Ireland and we need to respond to that with market conditions that reinforce and encourage that change of mindset.”
@Andrew Kiely: what’s your point?
@SYaxJ2Ts: His point is, that Coveney’s prophecy, hope & implementation of same came through in Govt policy & is part of the problem today. It wouldn’t affect you Kevin as a Govt lackey on a big salary, but it affects thousands of young working Irish people who are paying extortionate rent & who can’t buy or afford a home in Ireland today.
@SV3tN8M4: context is key here, and I don’t know when this quote is from, but surely certainty in the rental market is a good thing, albeit aspirational rather than real? You know, some security of tenure, rent certainty, that kind of thing. Anything to add here? Or are you just going to sling insults
@SV3tN8M4: and any chance of backing up your claim from yesterday that SF will introduce sleight of hand legislation to increase granting of asylum applications? I’ve asked twice already. Surely you’ve managed to find the relevant evidence by now
@SV3tN8M4: I suppose all those people the Gardai have charged were all working very hard to buy a house and provide for their families. Most of them staying in the city centre at the taxpayers cost
@Peter Byrne: Wouldn’t know Peter, don’t have anything to do with them, too busy working trying to make ends meet & pay my mortgage. You must be a happy man today that you & your buddies got a top up of 750,000, you might get your bumper Exit package & NDA now. Harris likes to reward Deceit & Incompetence, some of those in your organization are no better than those you judged above.
@Andrew Kiely:
I’ve just spent a week in Metz France.
As in other European cities all accommodation within the city is in apartments. Apartments cannot be used for property speculation. If an apartment is unoccupied for an extended period it has to be sold back to the freehold company (owners association).
If you want to live in a house – to go to a village 10 -20 km out.
Buttimer has repeatedly been rejected by the cork electorate, and now finally by his own party. Maybe this time the penny will drop
@mickey mac: Once Fine Gael learned that Buttimer was attending pro-Palestinian events that was end for him.
@mickey mac: He is left there for Tokenistic reasons by Fine Gael.
Simon Coveney looked well, which is important in politics. But after that he lacked leadership. He fronted up the ‘ same-s marriage’ referendum by parroting the party line and adding in his own daughters. One of them might be that way.
Fair point but not compelling. let them have all the rights of marriage, but call it something else. Marriage always meant man and woman.
Neologisms are used every day to overturn the established order.
For example – gender was a grammatical term to distinguish three different forms of a noun. Male and female got into it because they were two obvious categories. But there was never a case of an obvious male having a female noun form or visa versa.
Generally a neuter gender noun is a noun that denotes a lifeless thing. A thing which is neither male nor female.
But as anyone who learned French knows a pen and a pencil have different genders even though they both are technically neuter.
La plume de ma tante
Le crayon de ma tante
In fact there is no neuter gender in French. An omission which the French chattering class are struggling to cope with.
Anyhow this is a long way from Simon Coveney – other than to point out that weak leaders are easily pushed into fronting up anything which a mob (nowadays a Twitter mob) wants.
There is certainly a FG seat in Cork SC, especially as it’s now a 5 seater. Going to a battle royal between Úna McCarthy and Shane O Callaghan to whose ahead after the first count. That’s vital. As it’s extremely unlikely both will get elected
have your say