Andrew Campbell on Jacinda Ardern, the media and the snap election that wasn’t

The former press secretary revisits five seismic years in the Beehive. 

Cameos by past prime ministers have provided welcome distraction in the 2026 campaign. John Key sprinkled a bit of Brighter Future on National. For Labour, Jacinda Ardern spread some Relentless Positivity.

The latter was the less visible of the two – unlike Key, Ardern did not, for example, pitch up at the campaign launch – but it still made headlines. An email backing Chris Hipkins and shaking the tin for donations led the NZ Herald online for most of Sunday. 

That reflects in part the strength of opinions about the former prime minister. A mostly unremarkable message to supporters sparked a fresh round of antagonism across social media. But don't mistake that for a popularity metric; Ardern remains consistently ahead of other political figures, with Freshwater polls for the Post putting her at +10 in net favourability, well ahead of an underwater pack.

These are “numbers that either of the Chrisses would be killing for”, said Andrew Campbell, Ardern’s former chief press secretary, on a new episode of At Large with Toby Manhire.

“Her book was, I think, the largest selling book in New Zealand last year. The documentary did very well. These are not sort of indicators of someone who has deep unpopularity.”

What was “undoubtedly true”, however, was the depth of feelings. “I live in the UK now, and they use the phrase ‘Marmite’ over there a lot more, which is you either really love it or you really hate it. And I put that down to her effectiveness and the fact that you only elicit that strength of feeling if you're doing something that's really strong and really impacts people,” said Campbell, whose book tracing his time in the Beehive, In the Room, has just been published. 

“I think it [is] because she was a conviction politician, a change politician, not someone just coming in to manage the status quo. Plus she had this series of events where she had to make decisions that affected literally the lives of every single person in New Zealand. It was simply inevitable at the end of that, that more and more people would feel more strongly. I think what's remarkable is that a lot of people still view her very favourably as a result of that. And I actually don't think we hear enough of that. I think we hear lots of the dissent.”

What sort of dissent? 

“My taxi driver, actually, as soon as I got off the plane [in Auckland], the first thing he raised was lockdown restrictions. This is three years ago. I think certain circles still talk very, very negatively about her, and I think sometimes people who want to talk more positively don't really get the opportunity or can get a bit silenced.”

For some, the Covid memories remain raw despite the passage of time. The Auckland lockdown, the vaccination mandates, the restrictions on New Zealanders seeking to return to see their loved ones. How could those affected square this with the kindness ethos being espoused?

“One of the things that I found was that as soon as you did something that someone perceived not to be kind, that [message] could be weaponised,” said Campbell. “You know, ‘You talk of kindness, yet you're doing this.’ This person can't see a loved one who's dying, or this person can't come home. I think you have to look at a government in aggregate. You have to look at all of the things in totality.” 

He said: “In that period, the volume of decisions that the government had to make was unprecedented. We had to unpack and rebuild the running of the country under lockdown conditions. It is inevitable when you do that that you're going to make mistakes, and so I think often people do what you've just done and point to obvious things that would have had an impact. I think that ultimately, though, it was the cumulative impact rather than any one thing.”

In early 2023, Ardern dropped a bombshell: she was retiring as prime minister and from politics. With the benefit of hindsight, the smart play for Labour after Chris Hipkins took on the leadership would have been to go to the polls, Campbell said. 

“None of us thought of it at the time, but I think had I had a clearer view of it, probably what I would have suggested is there would have been a case to go to the election early,” he said. 

“You could have done the bonfire, probably even done a mini- or early budget,” said Campbell, alluding to the “bonfire” of policy programmes Hipkins undertook with an eye on a “bread and butter” focus on cost of living, “and then gone to the polls.”

He said: “It probably would have left National quite flat-footed. I think it would have been legitimate because obviously there was also quite a seismic shift when Jacinda left … and I think it would have also helped to reset the government, which was what Chris was really trying to do.”

In the book, Campbell also recounts his personal struggle with alcoholism – including benders with Matthew Hooton, his adversary on the RNZ Nine to Noon politics slot from 2009. “Matthew was the first person with whom I got dangerously drunk,” he writes in In the Room. 

“It was a giddy mix of quantity, quality and access. We would end up at bars and restaurants I’d never dreamed of being in and drinking with people in front of whom I frankly shouldn’t have been that drunk – MPs, political staff, business leaders and journalists.”

Campbell and Hooton remain friends – Hooton, now editor of the Post, launched Campbell’s book this week with an effusive speech that praised both his kindness and his skills of manipulation. Like Hooton, Campbell would eventually conquer his addiction. By the time he applied for the job of Ardern’s media boss he was sober.

In another part of the book, however, he writes: “I’ve often wondered if I could have done the job of chief press secretary as effectively without the network of contacts developed over many big nights out.” His conclusion? “Probably not. It’s an uncomfortable truth that much of the trust I relied on was forged partway down a bottle of wine or whisky. I don’t see how I could have built those ties any other way.”

Uncomfortable is an understatement. Doesn’t that say something chilling about our politics, media and New Zealand culture more broadly? “Maybe it would be different now,” Campbell told The Spinoff.

“I have to say, one of the things since I stopped drinking at the end of 2017 is it's a lot easier not to drink any more. You increasingly see people who don't … I hope society has changed around it, and there's definitely statistics to show that younger people are drinking less. I would hope that, because of that, the next generation of people coming through into those roles wouldn't be as reliant on alcohol to have lubricated the relationships.”

For the full conversation, which spans the state of the 2026 New Zealand election, announcements about announcements, the parliamentary occupation, Facebook, Barry Soper’s criticisms, Andy Burnham, and where Campbell sits on the Armando Iannucci spectrum from The Thick of It’s Malcolm Tucker to Veep’s Gary Walsh, watch or listen to the full episode.

At Large with Toby Manhire is available here on Spotify, or here on Apple. For YouTube, subscribe to the Spinoff here and find all the episodes here.