When an Australian journalist wanted to find out how to correctly pronounce the name of New Zealand’s incoming prime minister, he – unknowingly – went straight to the top.
According to The New Zealand Herald, Tiger Webb of Australia’s ABC Radio called the New Zealand Parliament on Friday to find out how Jacinda Ardern, who takes over as prime minister this coming week, pronounces her surname.
Webb was transferred to the Labour Party’s offices, and none other than Ardern herself answered the phone. She told Webb that her last name is pronounced “AH-durn.”
“It was funny. I was in a meeting and my desk phone started to ring and it doesn’t ring much so I went over and I saw it was an international number and I just picked up,” Ardern told the Herald.
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The brief phone conversation sparked some lively Twitter banter after an impressed Webb tweeted about the incident.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark tweeted, “That’s New Zealand!!”
Ardern, 37, will be New Zealand’s youngest leader in more than 150 years, and hopes to take the country on a more liberal path following nine years of rule by the Conservatives.
The former Mormon is about to take office after New Zealand First’s Party leader joined the coalition of Labour Party and Greens – forming a slim majority in Parliament.
“I am a thinker and I do muse over things a lot, and am constantly assessing whether I am doing enough, or what I should be doing more of to make sure I am not letting anyone down,” she told the Guardian.
The young leader seems like a fresh start to many, and won much of her support from women and young voters.
In fact, she made her first splash only 7 hours after being elected as party leader in August – when a journalist questioned her on whether or not she wants a family.
“If you are the employer of a company you need to know that type of thing from the woman you are employing … the question is, is it OK for a PM to take maternity leave while in office?” Mark Richardson of the AM Show asked at the time.
She said she would answer because she’s chosen to make her family life public but bristled at the implication that an employers should have the right to these type of details.
“It is totally unacceptable in 2017 to say that women should have to answer that question in the workplace, it is unacceptable, it is unacceptable,” she said, according to the Guardian.
Her popularity — dubbed “Jacindamania” — grew throughout the campaign, along with the Labour Party’s. Her promises include raising the minimum wage, tackling child poverty and increasing the refugee quota for the country.
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