“Royal Amnesia: How Ardern’s “Cute” Queen Story Buries the Treaty Breach” - 7 December 2025

Mōrena Aotearoa, I hope your Sunday is a good one. I’m heading to BJJ church at 9am to go and smash some people! (If you are part of the Jujitsu culture you know what I mean :)).

Now on to Ardern.

They want you to look at the shiny things. The Damehood. The “When I Grow Up” podcast with Ben Boyce’s kid. The heartwarming anecdote about Queen Elizabeth II.

But as a kaitiaki of truth, I see the shadowy threads of a different story—one of corporate capture, royal fealty, and the systematic erasure of Māori pain.

Dame Jacinda Ardern has re-emerged from her global elite circuit to drop a “cute” revelation on an NZME-commercialized podcast:

that the late Queen called her during the Covid-19 lockdown and was “so moved” by New Zealanders standing at their driveways on Anzac Day, as reported by the NZ Herald.

It sounds sweet. It feels warm.

But let’s be clear:

this is a strategic deployment of nostalgia to sell a movie, rewrite history, and mask the cold, hard reality that while the Queen was “moved” by our military loyalty, the Crown was actively breaching Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Background: The “Team of 5 Million” Myth

Cast your mind back to April 25, 2020. We were in Level 4 lockdown. We stood at our driveways for “Stand at Dawn,” a moment curated by the NZ Defence Force. It was sold as the ultimate moment of national unity—the “Team of 5 Million” standing together.

But unity without equity is just assimilation.

While we stood in silence, the machinery of the state was already failing tangata whenua. The Waitangi Tribunal’s Haumaru report would later reveal that the Crown’s vaccination strategy actively breached the Treaty by ignoring Māori health advice and failing to prioritize our vulnerable, a finding confirmed by RNZ.

The reality for many Māori during “Stand at Dawn” was isolation and inequity, not the “moving” unity the Queen observed from afar.

Analysis: Five Hidden Truths They Won’t Tell You

1. Honouring Imperialism, Ignoring Inequity

The Queen’s comment—that she was “moved” by our Anzac observance—is a masterclass in imperial nostalgia. The Monarchy loves nothing more than colonials dying for King and Country, or in this case, performing loyalty from their driveways.

But here is the verified truth the Queen missed:

The Tribunal found that the Crown’s decision to reject advice for an age adjustment for Māori in the vaccine rollout was a breach of active protection and equity, as detailed in the Haumaru Report.

While the Queen celebrated our “spirit,” Māori were being left exposed to a virus that kills us at higher rates. The “moved” sentiment is a celebration of compliance, not care.

2. The “Glossy” Propaganda Film

Ardern is currently on a promotional tour for her documentary, Prime Minister, released in September 2025, as noted by IMDb.

Note the production credits:

it was produced by her husband, Clarke Gayford, using his own home videos, a fact highlighted by RNZ.

Critics have already called it out. Variety described it as “simplistic” and noted it “glosses over political wrangling,” according to a summary by RNZ. It is a curated, soft-focus rewrite of history that erases the Haumaru findings. It paints a picture of “kindness” while editing out the Tribunal’s finding that her government’s actions were “inconsistent with te Tiriti”. This isn’t a documentary; it’s a vanity project that posted the strongest debut since 2018, as reported by the NZ Herald.

3. The Global Elite Pipeline: Earthshot Trustee

Why does Ardern need to maintain these Royal ties? Follow the money and the mana.

Since April 2023, Ardern has been a Trustee of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize, as announced by the Earthshot Prize. This isn’t just a charity; it’s a networking vehicle for the global elite to “greenwash” their reputations.

By serving as a Trustee, Ardern has seamlessly transitioned from the Prime Minister of a realm nation to a direct servant of the King, solidifying a whakapapa of power that bypasses accountability to Māori.

4. Feasting on Corporate Kai

Who funds this Earthshot Prize that Ardern now helps oversee?

The “Global Alliance Partners” include some of the world’s most extractive corporate giants. We are talking about major players like Walmart, Uber, and Unilever, whose involvement is celebrated on the Earthshot website.

These are the entities Ardern is now aligned with. While our whānau struggle with the cost of living crisis exacerbated by neoliberal economic policies, our former PM is sitting at the board table with global capital, rubber-stamping “solutions” that do nothing to dismantle the systems of capitalism destroying Papatūānuku.

Ardern’s new table is shared with global corporate giants, far removed from the marae dining halls she once visited.

5. The Hypocrisy of “Listening to Feelings”

In the same interview, Ardern advises her younger self:

“Don’t let anyone trivialise how you feel,” a quote captured by the NZ Herald.

The irony is scathing. When Māori health experts cried out in 2020 and 2021—when they felt the danger and presented the data—they were trivialized. The Haumaru report explicitly states that the government failed to jointly design the vaccine framework with Māori. The feelings and expertise of our tohunga and hauora leaders were ignored in favor of a “one size fits all” model that suited the Pākehā majority.

Implications: The Erasure of Responsibility

This media blitz—the podcast, the Graham Norton appearance, the “glossy” film—is designed to cement Jacinda Ardern’s legacy as the “Saint of Kindness” on the global stage. Every time we share the “cute” story about the Queen, we participate in the erasure of the Treaty breach. We allow the “warm fuzzies” of celebrity culture to numb us to the cold reality of political failure.

The harm is quantifiable:

The Tribunal estimated that if Māori vaccination rates had equaled non-Māori rates, significant deaths could have been prevented.

That is not a “movie moment.” That is a tragedy.

Cut the Cord

We must stop looking at the screen and start looking at the facts. Jacinda Ardern is no longer our Prime Minister; she is an employee of the global circuit, a Trustee of the Royals, and a partner to corporate giants.

The late Queen was moved by our silence. I am moved by our truth. We will not be silent. We will not stand at the end of the driveway waiting for a pat on the head from Buckingham Palace. We will stand on our marae, armed with the Haumaru report, and demand the accountability that no documentary can edit out.

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Research Transparency:

• Tools Used: search_web, get_url_content, search_files_v2, generate_image.
• Sources Consulted: NZ Herald (Dec 2025), Waitangi Tribunal Haumaru Report (Wai 2575), Earthshot Prize Official Website, RNZ, Variety.
• Date of Research: December 7, 2025.
• Visuals: 2x Generated Photorealistic Images, 1x Sourced Image (NZ Herald).