An audio recording of the discussion, which featured several other panellists, reveals that at one stage Cohen began a point by stating, “With respect…”
Ardern: “Really, dude, you’ve got to stop using that phrase.”
Jacinda Ardern and David Cohen on stage together in 2011. Photo / supplied
But it’s another of Cohen’s points that day that stands out in the context of events in 2025.
“As a writer, I am fascinated by biography and autobiography,” Cohen says to Ardern and the audience.
“How do we know those who we are closest to? How do we know ourselves? It’s awfully hard to answer those questions.”
Fourteen years on, Cohen – an experienced journalist, writer and author – has completed his eighth book, an unauthorised biography of one of the most polarising political figures of our time.
One, Dame Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern.
‘Tsunami of syrup’
Cohen’s book, Jacinda: The Untold Stories, is released next month; Ardern’s critics believe the book will be a balm to a barrage of coverage in recent weeks, including the release of her autobiography, a children’s book and her movie, Prime Minister. She even makes a cameo appearance in the new Pike River film.
There is, says Cohen, a “tsunami of syrup” that flows around Ardern. Sycophantic coverage that can smother any dispassionate analysis or debate of her leadership and personality.
For two years, the former Prime Minister has been a focus for the writer and journalist as he has strived to uncover the “real story” – as marketing for his new book has promised – of Ardern’s life before, during and post public office.
Former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern during her valedictory speech in Parliament in 2023. Photo / Mark Mitchell
But those expecting a hit job, by deed of the book being funded and marketed by the conservative Centrist website, may need to reassess that judgment when it hits the shelves.
With more than 100 people interviewed, some named, some speaking on background, Cohen has promised an independent and unfiltered analysis of Ardern. He wanted, he says, a polyphonic book.
We know the interviewees include politicians from Ardern’s own Labour caucus, National and NZ First, and broadcasters such as Mike Hosking and Heather Du Plessis-Allan.
Ardern, however, did not respond to Cohen’s approaches through her representatives to be interviewed.
Publicity for the book offers a range of quotes from the interviews conducted by Cohen and journalist Rebecca Keillor:
“We didn’t spend enough time debating serious things in Cabinet that I can recall…”“She always made me sit up a bit straighter.”“By stealthily pushing co-governance, Ardern has sparked deep animosities…” “…it fed the hunger that is now evident in the Māori Party.”“By wearing a hijab and declaring … ‘They are us’, she may well also have spared New Zealand bloody retaliation by Islamists.”“The marketing department was in overdrive, but the operations department was almost non-existent.”“For the first time in 40 years, I voted Labour.”“She agreed with a wide grin that she was creating two classes of people.”“… a uniting figure in her period of office.”“I don’t think any other Prime Minister has done as much damage.”“Ardern saved tens of thousands of lives.”
Cohen says it’s a “radical” and “extreme” book, insofar as it’s moderate.
The cover of the new unauthorised biography on Dame Jacinda Ardern.
He cites a famous quote – often and apparently wrongly attributed to Winston Churchill – that says if you’re not a liberal at 18, you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative at 35, you have no brain.
“I did it the other way around,” says Cohen. “I started as a somewhat conservative, neoliberal. But now deep into middle age, I’m a more liberal person. I certainly hope I am. Hopefully, this book reflects it – it tries to be radical in that it’s moderate.
“And there’s something there, as the journalistic cliche goes, to annoy the extremes on both sides.
“That is part of the problem with our journalism … it has been very binary: you love her, she’s most wonderful, St Teresa sort of thing – or she’s demonic.
“And that’s so reductive; it robs people of their humanity.”
What does Cohen think people will take from the book?
If they “feel better informed than when they picked up the book, then that’s all I want”.
He says he’s not trying to convert anyone. He’s not interested in true believers – the “worshipful devotee who can’t think of any area to criticise Ardern on” – or those who think she is a demon.
“I believe that there are many people in the middle who don’t have the time or the emotional energy, or whatever, who will appreciate it.”
‘Her obvious intelligence exceeded her insights’
Author David Cohen says his book on Dame Jacinda Ardern will be his last political biography. Photo / Supplied
Cohen says he’s had the book in mind since that panel discussion in 2011, even before Ardern became Prime Minister.
“The book starts with that interlude, partly to establish my bona fides of actually knowing her or having encountered her,” says Cohen.
“But also because that’s where my interest in her began. You know how it is, if you spend time with someone, particularly on stage, you always notice them from there on in.
“I followed her ascension. I followed it with a lot of interest. It had a lot of effect on me, along with five million others.”
Cohen thinks back to that exchange in 2011.
“I thought her obvious intelligence exceeded her insights, and I know that sounds patronising. But when you’re in your 20s, you don’t really know a lot about everything – I mean, trust me.
“There was a real Energiser Bunny thing about her. She was enthusiastic.”
Cohen uses that adjective in the truest sense of the word.
“Enthusiasm is a theological word – it means possessed by God, en theos.
“There was a religiosity about her, and I pursue this in the book somewhat. I’m really interested in religion, so that drew me to her.
“She came across as agreeable, smart, ambitious, somewhat religious, and not just because of the Marie Osmond looks.
“I didn’t warm to her. I can’t say we had chemistry, as such. In fact, she got a little grumpy during the exchange.
“I won’t say clashed… we bickered.”
Then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and partner Clarke Gayford soon after their daughter Neve’s birth in 2018.
A religious foundation
It is around the subject of religion that Cohen believes the book provides the biggest revelation into Ardern’s character.
“Conventional journalistic wisdom is that she profoundly disagreed with the Mormon Church over gay marriage or civil unions, so she ceased going to church.
“And the extrapolation from that is that everything else she had hitherto clung to and believed – her whole edifice of foundational values – also went with it.
“The more I looked at it, thought about it… she may have left the church, but the church never left her.”
He said that once he figured that out, he began to understand Ardern better.
“When I got that key, I started to understand that Jacinda’s not a socialist, she’s not woke at all.”
Cohen cites one example – the Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith and one of his most famous quotes: “Kindness is our religion”.
Cohen cocks his head slightly on our Zoom call. “Where have I heard that before?”
Micromanaged media comments
Cohen says Ardern is now micromanaged on her media comments.
“These days, she’s not very good at answering questions. It’s so ironic. Her reputation locally was built on her agility – in front of journalists, in front of crowds, to [individuals] like Donald Trump. She could just get to it.
“It was effortless, and it was appealing.
“Now she’s very managed. On her book tour in New York and Washington, all the questions were vetted. All the stuff about Covid’s out except generic references.
“The woman she has become in that respect – that very micromanaged woman – wouldn’t like the fact that this [book] asks quite a few questions about her. Eight years ago, I wouldn’t have said that.”
Cohen says he likes Ardern.
“I ended this work, liking her more but respecting her a little less, if you know what I mean.”
He says he voted for her in 2020 and received Covid vaccinations.
“This is the moderate thing that I mean. I had vaccinations. I think they were oversold – I’m fairly certain on that – but I’m not anti-vac, I’m not into conspiracies.
“The mandates were a mistake. They were an infringement on basic rights, and people suffered.”
Cohen’s book considers other political and social changes under Ardern’s administration, including the “familiar arguments about culture and language and ministries rebranding themselves”.
“There’s a question on whether she was adjacent to these issues or whether she was passionate, that these were really core issues for her. I lean to the first.
“She’s very comfortable with Māori culture. Did she have a radical agenda? Some sort of epoch-changing agenda? Personally, no, I don’t think so. She had a Māori caucus in which there were such elements, I would say.”
The ‘real story’
The new Jacinda Ardern book has been marketed online and on outdoor billboards.
Does Cohen believe, then, that he has nailed the “real story” of Ardern, as the marketing promises?
Cohen mulls the question for a second and then gives an answer that aligns with what he said on stage at Auckland Museum in 2011.
“I’ve spent most of my life profiling people. I’ve written biographies before, and something that, even in my 20s, I began to realise is this question: how do we tell someone else’s story?
“At what point do we actually know someone? Even the people we live with, even our partners, even our children.
“Do we know them? What is their story? Can we put it down? And the older I get, the less confident I am that we can. That’s a little bit of an existential reply, but it’s genuine.”
A book is “a moment in time recorded by a certain person, also in a moment of time”.
“It’s longform journalism. It’s better than newspaper profiles because I’ve had so much more time on it. But is it complete? It’s still kaleidoscopic, a little.”
Ardern’s next moves
The book considers Ardern’s next political move. Again, the publicity touches on this, referring to the UN gearing up to choose a new secretary general: “With the world on a powderkeg, is Ardern up to the job?”
Cohen says the question of whether she would stand for the role became a “bit of a parlour game” in the book.
Those closest to Ardern are adamant, says Cohen.
“She’s going for it, and that’s that. Whether she will and whether she can in the current era – she would need support from the American administration, for instance – that’s another question.”
Cohen has read Ardern’s memoir. “[George] Orwell said that a memoir that doesn’t reveal something disgraceful about the writer is worthless. Well, by Orwell’s measure, this one didn’t pass the test because there’s nothing disgraceful.
“There are lovely little insights,” says Cohen. “When she met Clarke Gayford, she shook his hand.
“I liked her childhood memories. I was struck by how few books she’s read. There are no literary allusions. She can’t cite chapter and verse, yet she’s a very intelligent person. But there was a bit of a revelation about how little she had read.”
The Centrist involvement
In an interview in June on her ZB show, Heather Du Plessis-Allan asked Cohen about the Centrist link and whether he was worried that “would possibly lend your book to becoming a bit fringe?”.
The Centrist is a news aggregator website that some commentators have described as “right-leaning” and “alternative”.
“If I had Creative New Zealand funding, I would be concerned about it being fringe because that seems to … account for a lot of that agency’s sponsorship at the moment,” Cohen told Du Plessis-Allan at the time.
He tells me: “Centrist didn’t interfere with what I did. I decided who I would interview, how I would interview, and what I would use, if anything, from those conversations. I didn’t feel meddled with.
“There wasn’t editorial intercession.
“Was it a concern? It’s always a concern. It’s a concern when you write for any publisher or indeed any editor. You know, that can always happen. But did the concern materialise? No, not in any substantive fashion.”
An experienced Wellington-based journalist, Cohen’s work has appeared in New Zealand outlets including RNZ, the NZ Herald and the Listener and international outlets including the Spectator, the Daily Telegraph, the Australian and the Guardian.
Cohen, who also wrote Fridays with Jim – a book based on a series of weekly conversations with former Prime Minister Jim Bolger – says this will be his last political biography. “It’s just too hard work, and it’s thankless as well.
“I do cookbooks. People love them. They go out and they cook kofta and shakshuka. No one gets angry.”
Jacinda: The Untold Stories will be released on November 10.
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.