Jacinda Ardern chooses Sydney for family life near New Zealand

jacinda ardern has explained why she chose Sydney as her new home, saying the move kept her close to New Zealand while giving her family a life more like the one they had there. She said the decision followed time in the United States and the UK after her 2023 resignation.

Sydney's pull for Ardern

Ardern told the Sydney Morning Herald that proximity was one of the main attractions. "One of the main attractions for us was the proximity to home," she said. She added, "We’d been far away for a while, and we wanted to be closer to friends and family, but also wanted to get back to a life that was, you know, a bit like what we might have in New Zealand."

She said there was no fixed endpoint to the move. "But we don’t have a set timeframe. We’ve never been much for five-year plans," she said. Ardern also described Sydney as "a beautiful city," while saying New Zealand was still "the most beautiful place on the planet" to her.

Clarke, ocean and birds

Ardern said the setting also suited her husband Clarke. "Living beside the ocean is one thing, as that’s where my husband Clarke’s happiest," she said. She also pointed to one small but telling difference between the two countries: "We particularly love your birds. We have lots of birds in New Zealand, but our birds are just much quieter than yours!"

The move follows a period after her resignation in 2023, when Ardern and her family spent time in the United States and the UK before deciding they would spend a little bit of time in Australia rather than returning to New Zealand. For readers trying to understand the practical side of the relocation, the important point is that Ardern described Sydney as a family choice, not a permanent deadline-driven move.

Resignation and politics

Ardern also used the interview to revisit her departure from office and the style of politics she believes has become more damaging. "I think it’s key to... the survival of democracy," she said of her collaborative approach, adding, "We’ve been on a trajectory where citizens around the world increasingly feel a sense of grievance to political institutions."

She said, "These are all things that certain styles of politics have contributed to, [advanced] by politicians who choose to use polarisation and insularity as tools, and it is causing us to be fractured." On her resignation, Ardern said, "But I did not believe I could keep going and perform the job to the standard that I had set for myself, and I recognised that I needed to have that sense of responsibility to hand over to someone else."

Ardern also joked about the paperwork that comes with life after office. "Every time I pause and I think, ‘What am I?’ You know, ‘former PM’, is not really an occupation," she said. "Sometimes I write ‘speaker’, sometimes I write ‘writer’. If there was more space I would put, ‘Washed-up politician’!" The move to Sydney now leaves her with no declared timetable, and that is the clearest part of the story for anyone tracking how she is choosing to live after leaving power.