Strengths on show in PM’s visit to South

Given her job you would expect Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to know about many things, but she is still capable of springing a surprise.

For example, while in Dunedin on Thursday she garnered a host of exclamations from onlookers when telling Predator Free Dunedin that having grown up on an orchard, her advice was that peanut butter laced with almond essence would be the best bait for its possum traps.

All successful politicians have to master the art of personal engagement and making a connection with voters, but Ms Ardern is expert at it.

After a turbulent month of politics with narrowing polls, rogue MPs, taxation missteps and division over Three Waters, spending a day with the prime minister is a salient reminder that she by far and away remains the Labour Party’s strongest asset and the best — and the way things are going at the moment possibly the only — hope of it winning next year’s election.

The Predator Free Dunedin gathering, the first official appointment of a busy swing down south, involved her inspecting the trapping efforts of the organisation and its volunteers, and demonstrating a sure sense of footing on the undulating fairways of the Otago Golf Club.

Clad in a jacket Dunedin MP Dr David Clark had had to rapidly rustle up from somewhere to guard her against a chilly Dunedin morning, Ms Ardern cheerfully crashed through the undergrowth to look at traps and nesting boxes and learn how scarce birds such as the rifleman were returning to the city.

Later Ms Ardern gratefully received a collection of bird stickers she expected her daughter to plaster over the Premier House furniture in short order, and various books, including a copy of Dunedin student Oscar Thomas’ book Birds of New Zealand — the copy the author had given her on a previous trip had ended up being regifted to English comedian Bill Bailey.

It seldom takes long for the schedule for a prime ministerial visit to fall behind, but nowhere in her office’s advisory timetable for Thursday’s trip was written ‘‘20 minutes for photos and selfies’’ — even of past experience has taught that it probably should.

Ms Ardern’s second stop was Otago Polytechnic, for a tour around the building site of what will eventually become He Toki Kai Te Rika, the new trades training centre.

However, the tour was much delayed as a prime ministerial pit stop for a quick cuppa saw her swamped by students for a minute of her time.

A couple of years ago at the same venue, then National leader Simon Bridges had to actively look for students to meet and greet ... Ms Ardern’s problem was when to try to put the visit back on track without leaving people disappointed.

Later she mentioned just how many of those students had been nursing students, and said she had urged every one of them to study hard as New Zealand’s hospitals, medical centres and GP clinics needed them.

The building site tour had been long planned — fog had defeated a previous attempt to show it to Ms Ardern — but few things on a prime ministerial schedule are there for no reason: the previous day Ms Ardern had made an announcement about the Apprenticeship Boost programme, and she made a point of singling out apprentices working on the Naylor Love site.

After a quick break for a bite and for briefings came the centrepiece of Ms Ardern’s visit, the Otago Daily Times Class Act award ceremony.

Every prime minister has taken part in the ceremony since the awards began, and Ms Ardern had given particular thought to what she wanted to say this year.

After joking that she had thought about simply delivering the speech drafted for last year’s event — one of many occasions derailed by Covid-19 — she then embarked on a thoughtful discourse on the promise of youth and the peril faced by teenagers navigating their way through a pandemic.

It sounded personal and Ms Ardern later confirmed that it was: she had taken her speech writing team’s draft and added her own emphasis about the significance of the past two years as she saw it for young people.

After another round of selfies and portraits taken with the award winners and their families, it was off to the airport for Ms Ardern after a busy day.

But the nature of the job is that despite all the planning in the world events still happen ... just a few hours later Ms Ardern was awoken to the news that New Zealand had a new Head of State and her planned trip to the United States next week would have to be reorganised.

The rule of law

Happily, no-one is above the law in New Zealand, as Taieri Labour MP Ingrid Leary found out when her oversized van was ticketed outside Otago Polytechnic on Thursday.

Faced with a choice between losing touch with the prime minister or parking in a less than legitimate manner, she — expensively — chose the latter.

It was not all doom for Ms Leary this week though: she has just been appointed the deputy chairwoman of what is arguably Parliament’s most important select committee, finance and expenditure.

A tie to reap, a tie to sow

Unlike some MPs, Dr David Clark has not taken advantage of the Speaker’s relaxation of Parliament’s dress code and still wears a tie in the debating chamber.

The particularly eagle-eyed may have noticed that he has been wearing a new and special tie at each stage so far of the Plant Variety Rights Bill: a gift from Federated Farmers, it fittingly features a variety of seeds.

mike.houlahan@odt.co.nz