Summarised by Centrist
Was Jacinda Ardern a naïve leader swept along by events, or a calculating strategist with a plan all along? That was Mike Hosking’s question to David Cohen, author of Jacinda: The Untold Stories, during their Newstalk ZB interview.
Hosking didn’t hesitate with his conclusion. “I eventually decided she was Machiavellian,” he said. “She had a plan. She was deliberate.”
Cohen didn’t dispute the framing but chose to leave the answer open. “That’s one of the great ‘what ifs’ about her,” he said. “Was she carried along on a tide or did she, for lack of a better word, engineer it herself?” He added, “I come more on the adjacent side of that. [Ardern was] someone with missionary zeal, shaped by formative principles and experience.”
In one striking comment, Cohen said the Māori caucus “certainly knew where it wanted to go,” suggesting parts of Ardern’s government were highly deliberate in direction, even if Ardern herself was guided more by conviction than control.
Hosking called the book long overdue, describing it as a clear-eyed account of one of New Zealand’s most polarising leaders. Cohen said he approached the project as “an old-fashioned journalist” seeking balance, with over 100 interviews and two years of research. “It’s not about liking or disliking her,” he said. “It’s about telling the other side.”
Jacinda: The Untold Stories is now available in bookstores nationwide and at Centrist.nz.
