Then he started started a new career as a Christchurch city councillor.
The 32-year-old took out the Heathcote Ward with 5014 votes in the local body elections, comfortably heading off the only other contender Sumner lawyer, Ian Kearney (3523 votes).
The ward had been left vacant after incumbent Sara Templeton stood only for mayor. She went down heavily to Phil Mauger by about 20,000 votes.
Herz Jardine, who will be the youngest city councillor, said he found out the result while cycling to a friend’s house.
“It was mostly just relief initially. I was feeling confident, but also just really nervous at the same time, I had this feeling that there was a lot of support in the community for the campaign,” he said.
A Labour Party member Herz Jardine joined Labour-aligned The People’s Choice political grouping earlier this year. He is a former Green party member and was a field organiser for the Green party during the 2020 election.
Incumbent Heathcote Ward Community Board members, Tim Lindley and Will Hall both retained their positions, beating Jack Mould and Daniel Nielsen.
A Cantabrian, he moved to Victoria University in Wellington just before the February 22, 2011, earthquake, where he studied history and Latin.
He moved back to Christchurch during the Covid lockdown in 2020.
"That's the first time I really started to feel like, this is actually where I'm gonna make my life, this is my home and I really want to be part of making it a better place.
"Politics started becoming less of an interest and more of a personal thing,” he said.
"It was really close to my heart because I'd spent a lot of my 20s working those sorts of minimum wage jobs,” he said.
It showed Herz Jardine learned how to make political change at a local level, understand how local government works and the impact it can have.
He is strongly in favour of the city council retaining its assets like Lyttelton Port Company, Orion and CityCare – a key part of People’s Choice philosophy.
He also has safety concerns around the restructure of LPC that will remove highly experienced foreman from the work place.
“I really want to do everything I can as a city councillor to make sure that industrial relations don't deteriorate further,” he said.
He is supportive of a union representative being on the Lyttelton Port Company board.
Herz Jardine, said he will be advocating for central government to increase the rates rebate for people on fixed income.
