An audio recording of the discussion, which featured several other panellists, reveals that at one stage Cohen began a point by stating, \u201cWith respect…\u201d<\/p>\n
Ardern: \u201cReally, dude, you\u2019ve got to stop using that phrase.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacinda Ardern and David Cohen on stage together in 2011. Photo \/ supplied<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s another of Cohen\u2019s points that day that stands out in the context of events in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a writer, I am fascinated by biography and autobiography,\u201d Cohen says to Ardern and the audience. <\/p>\n
\u201cHow do we know those who we are closest to? How do we know ourselves? It\u2019s awfully hard to answer those questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
One, Dame Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern.<\/p>\n
\u2018Tsunami of syrup\u2019<\/p>\n
Cohen\u2019s book, Jacinda: The Untold Stories, is released next month; Ardern\u2019s critics believe the book will be a balm to a barrage of coverage in recent weeks, including the release of her autobiography, a children\u2019s book and her movie, Prime Minister. She even makes a cameo appearance in the new Pike River film.<\/p>\n
There is, says Cohen, a \u201ctsunami of syrup\u201d that flows around Ardern. Sycophantic coverage that can smother any dispassionate analysis or debate of her leadership and personality.<\/p>\n
For two years, the former Prime Minister has been a focus for the writer and journalist as he has strived to uncover the \u201creal story\u201d \u2013 as marketing for his new book has promised \u2013 of Ardern\u2019s life before, during and post public office.<\/p>\n
Former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern during her valedictory speech in Parliament in 2023. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
We know the interviewees include politicians from Ardern\u2019s own Labour caucus, National and NZ First, and broadcasters such as Mike Hosking and Heather Du Plessis-Allan. <\/p>\n
Ardern, however, did not respond to Cohen\u2019s approaches through her representatives to be interviewed.<\/p>\n
Publicity for the book offers a range of quotes from the interviews conducted by Cohen and journalist Rebecca Keillor:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t spend enough time debating serious things in Cabinet that I can recall…\u201d\u201cShe always made me sit up a bit straighter.\u201d\u201cBy stealthily pushing co-governance, Ardern has sparked deep animosities…\u201d \u201c…it fed the hunger that is now evident in the M\u0101ori Party.\u201d\u201cBy wearing a hijab and declaring … \u2018They are us\u2019, she may well also have spared New Zealand bloody retaliation by Islamists.\u201d\u201cThe marketing department was in overdrive, but the operations department was almost non-existent.\u201d\u201cFor the first time in 40 years, I voted Labour.\u201d\u201cShe agreed with a wide grin that she was creating two classes of people.\u201d\u201c… a uniting figure in her period of office.\u201d\u201cI don\u2019t think any other Prime Minister has done as much damage.\u201d\u201cArdern saved tens of thousands of lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen says it\u2019s a \u201cradical\u201d and \u201cextreme\u201d book, insofar as it\u2019s moderate. <\/p>\n
The cover of the new unauthorised biography on Dame Jacinda Ardern.<\/p>\n
He cites a famous quote – often and apparently wrongly attributed to Winston Churchill – that says if you\u2019re not a liberal at 18, you have no heart; if you\u2019re not a conservative at 35, you have no brain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did it the other way around,\u201d says Cohen. \u201cI started as a somewhat conservative, neoliberal. But now deep into middle age, I\u2019m a more liberal person. I certainly hope I am. Hopefully, this book reflects it \u2013 it tries to be radical in that it\u2019s moderate. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd there\u2019s something there, as the journalistic cliche goes, to annoy the extremes on both sides. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat is part of the problem with our journalism … it has been very binary: you love her, she\u2019s most wonderful, St Teresa sort of thing \u2013 or she\u2019s demonic.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s so reductive; it robs people of their humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n
What does Cohen think people will take from the book? <\/p>\n
If they \u201cfeel better informed than when they picked up the book, then that\u2019s all I want\u201d.<\/p>\n
He says he\u2019s not trying to convert anyone. He\u2019s not interested in true believers \u2013 the \u201cworshipful devotee who can\u2019t think of any area to criticise Ardern on\u201d \u2013 or those who think she is a demon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that there are many people in the middle who don\u2019t have the time or the emotional energy, or whatever, who will appreciate it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Her obvious intelligence exceeded her insights\u2019<\/p>\n
Author David Cohen says his book on Dame Jacinda Ardern will be his last political biography. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
Cohen says he\u2019s had the book in mind since that panel discussion in 2011, even before Ardern became Prime Minister.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe book starts with that interlude, partly to establish my bona fides of actually knowing her or having encountered her,\u201d says Cohen.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut also because that\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI followed her ascension. I followed it with a lot of interest. It had a lot of effect on me, along with five million others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen thinks back to that exchange in 2011.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought her obvious intelligence exceeded her insights, and I know that sounds patronising. But when you\u2019re in your 20s, you don\u2019t really know a lot about everything – I mean, trust me. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a real Energiser Bunny thing about her. She was enthusiastic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen uses that adjective in the truest sense of the word.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnthusiasm is a theological word \u2013 it means possessed by God, en theos. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a religiosity about her, and I pursue this in the book somewhat. I\u2019m really interested in religion, so that drew me to her. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe came across as agreeable, smart, ambitious, somewhat religious, and not just because of the Marie Osmond looks. <\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t warm to her. I can\u2019t say we had chemistry, as such. In fact, she got a little grumpy during the exchange. <\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t say clashed\u2026 we bickered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and partner Clarke Gayford soon after their daughter Neve’s birth in 2018.<\/p>\n
A religious foundation<\/p>\n
It is around the subject of religion that Cohen believes the book provides the biggest revelation into Ardern\u2019s character.<\/p>\n
\u201cConventional journalistic wisdom is that she profoundly disagreed with the Mormon Church over gay marriage or civil unions, so she ceased going to church. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the extrapolation from that is that everything else she had hitherto clung to and believed \u2013 her whole edifice of foundational values \u2013 also went with it. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe more I looked at it, thought about it… she may have left the church, but the church never left her.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that once he figured that out, he began to understand Ardern better.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got that key, I started to understand that Jacinda\u2019s not a socialist, she\u2019s not woke at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen cites one example – the Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith and one of his most famous quotes: \u201cKindness is our religion\u201d.<\/p>\n
Cohen cocks his head slightly on our Zoom call. \u201cWhere have I heard that before?\u201d<\/p>\n
Micromanaged media comments<\/p>\n
Cohen says Ardern is now micromanaged on her media comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese days, she\u2019s not very good at answering questions. It\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was effortless, and it was appealing.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow she\u2019s very managed. On her book tour in New York and Washington, all the questions were vetted. All the stuff about Covid\u2019s out except generic references.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe woman she has become in that respect – that very micromanaged woman – wouldn\u2019t like the fact that this [book] asks quite a few questions about her. Eight years ago, I wouldn\u2019t have said that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen says he likes Ardern. <\/p>\n
\u201cI ended this work, liking her more but respecting her a little less, if you know what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says he voted for her in 2020 and received Covid vaccinations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the moderate thing that I mean. I had vaccinations. I think they were oversold \u2013 I\u2019m fairly certain on that \u2013 but I\u2019m not anti-vac, I\u2019m not into conspiracies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mandates were a mistake. They were an infringement on basic rights, and people suffered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen\u2019s book considers other political and social changes under Ardern\u2019s administration, including the \u201cfamiliar arguments about culture and language and ministries rebranding themselves\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s very comfortable with M\u0101ori culture. Did she have a radical agenda? Some sort of epoch-changing agenda? Personally, no, I don\u2019t think so. She had a M\u0101ori caucus in which there were such elements, I would say.\u201d <\/p>\n
The \u2018real story\u2019<\/p>\n
The new Jacinda Ardern book has been marketed online and on outdoor billboards.<\/p>\n
Does Cohen believe, then, that he has nailed the \u201creal story\u201d of Ardern, as the marketing promises?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve spent most of my life profiling people. I\u2019ve written biographies before, and something that, even in my 20s, I began to realise is this question: how do we tell someone else\u2019s story? <\/p>\n
\u201cAt what point do we actually know someone? Even the people we live with, even our partners, even our children. <\/p>\n
\u201cDo 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\u2019s a little bit of an existential reply, but it\u2019s genuine.\u201d<\/p>\n
A book is \u201ca moment in time recorded by a certain person, also in a moment of time\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s longform journalism. It\u2019s better than newspaper profiles because I\u2019ve had so much more time on it. But is it complete? It\u2019s still kaleidoscopic, a little.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ardern\u2019s next moves<\/p>\n
The book considers Ardern\u2019s next political move. Again, the publicity touches on this, referring to the UN gearing up to choose a new secretary general: \u201cWith the world on a powderkeg, is Ardern up to the job?\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen says the question of whether she would stand for the role became a \u201cbit of a parlour game\u201d in the book.<\/p>\n
Those closest to Ardern are adamant, says Cohen.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s going for it, and that\u2019s that. Whether she will and whether she can in the current era \u2013 she would need support from the American administration, for instance \u2013 that\u2019s another question.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen has read Ardern\u2019s memoir. \u201c[George] Orwell said that a memoir that doesn\u2019t reveal something disgraceful about the writer is worthless. Well, by Orwell\u2019s measure, this one didn\u2019t pass the test because there\u2019s nothing disgraceful.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are lovely little insights,\u201d says Cohen. \u201cWhen she met Clarke Gayford, she shook his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI liked her childhood memories. I was struck by how few books she\u2019s read. There are no literary allusions. She can\u2019t cite chapter and verse, yet she\u2019s a very intelligent person. But there was a bit of a revelation about how little she had read.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Centrist involvement<\/p>\n