Helen Clark
Helen Elizabeth Clark ONZ SSI PC (born 26 February 1950) is a New Zealand politician who served as the 37th prime minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008, and was the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme from 2009 to 2017. She was New Zealand's fifth-longest-serving prime minister, and the second woman to hold that office.[1]
For other people named Helen Clark, see Helen Clark (disambiguation).
Helen Clark
David Caygill
Michael Cullen
Mike Moore
Geoffrey Palmer
Mike Moore
Geoffrey Palmer
Geoffrey Palmer
Mike Moore
Geoffrey Palmer
David Lange
Geoffrey Palmer
Mike Moore
David Caygill
George Clark
Margaret McMurray
Clark was brought up on a farm outside Hamilton. She entered the University of Auckland in 1968 to study politics, and became active in the New Zealand Labour Party. After graduating she lectured in political studies at the university. Clark entered local politics in 1974 in Auckland but was not elected to any position. Following one unsuccessful attempt, she was elected to Parliament in 1981 as the member for Mount Albert, an electorate she represented until 2009.[2]
Clark held numerous Cabinet positions in the Fourth Labour Government, including minister of housing, minister of health and minister of conservation. She was the 11th deputy prime minister of New Zealand from 1989 to 1990 serving under prime ministers Geoffrey Palmer and Mike Moore. After Labour's narrow defeat in the 1993 election, Clark challenged Moore for leadership of the party and won, becoming the leader of the Opposition. Following the 1999 election, Labour formed a governing coalition, and Clark was sworn in as prime minister on 10 December 1999.[3][4]
Clark led the Fifth Labour Government, which implemented several major economic initiatives including Kiwibank, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme and KiwiSaver. Her government also introduced the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004, which caused major controversy. In foreign affairs, Clark sent troops to the Afghanistan War, but did not contribute combat troops to the Iraq War, and ordered a deployment to the 2006 East Timorese crisis. She was ranked by Forbes as the 20th-most powerful woman in the world in 2006.[5] She advocated a number of free-trade agreements with major trading partners, including becoming the first developed nation to sign such an agreement with China. After three successive electoral victories, her government was defeated in the 2008 election; Clark resigned as Prime Minister and party leader on 19 November 2008. She was succeeded as prime minister by John Key of the National Party, and as leader of the Labour Party by Phil Goff.
Clark resigned from Parliament in April 2009 to become the first female head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In 2016, she stood for the position of secretary-general of the United Nations, but was unsuccessful.[6] She left her UNDP administrator post on 19 April 2017 at the end of her second four-year term[7] and was succeeded by Achim Steiner.[8] In 2019, Clark became the patron of the Helen Clark Foundation.
Early life[edit]
Clark was the eldest of four daughters of a farming family at Te Pahu, west of Hamilton, in the Waikato.[9] Her mother, Margaret McMurray, of Irish birth, was a primary school teacher. Her father, George, was a farmer. Clark studied at Te Pahu Primary School, at Epsom Girls' Grammar School in Auckland and at the University of Auckland, where she majored in politics and graduated with an MA (Honours) in 1974. Her thesis focused on rural political behaviour and representation.[10][11] As a teenager Clark became politically active, protesting against the Vietnam War and campaigning against foreign military bases in New Zealand.[11]
Clark has worked actively in the New Zealand Labour Party for most of her life. In 1971 she assisted Labour candidates to the Auckland City Council, three of whom were elected.[12] Following this, she stood for the Auckland City Council herself in 1974 and 1977.[13][14] While generally polling well, she never won a seat, missing out by only 105 votes in the latter.[14]
Clark was a junior lecturer in political studies at the University of Auckland from 1973 to 1975.[11] In 1974 she sought the nomination for the Auckland Central electorate, but lost to Richard Prebble.[12] She instead stood for Piako, a National safe seat.[15] Clark studied abroad on a University Grants Committee post-graduate scholarship in 1976, and then lectured in political studies at Auckland again while undertaking her PhD (which she never completed) from 1977 until her election to Parliament in 1981. Her father supported National that election.[16]
Clark served as a member of Labour's national executive committee from 1978 until September 1988, and again from April 1989. She chaired the University of Auckland Princes Street branch of the Labour Party during her studies, becoming active alongside future Labour politicians including Richard Prebble, David Caygill, Margaret Wilson and Richard Northey. Clark held the positions of president of the Labour Youth Council, executive member of the party's Auckland Regional Council, secretary of the Labour Women's Council and member of the Policy Council.[17] In 1980 she stood as a candidate for the position of junior vice-president. However on the second day of the party conference she withdrew her candidacy, allowing union secretary Dan Duggan to be elected unopposed.[18]
She represented the New Zealand Labour Party at the congresses of the Socialist International and of the Socialist International Women in 1976, 1978, 1983 and 1986,[11] at an Asia-Pacific Socialist Organisation Conference held in Sydney in 1981, and at the Socialist International Party Leaders' Meeting in Sydney in 1991.
Views and positions[edit]
Social media[edit]
During her tenure as UNDP administrator and afterwards, Clark's presence on social media and avid use of Twitter has attracted positive attention in news media.[158][159][160] She has called for greater regulation of social media platforms,[161][162][163] and supports the Christchurch Call.[164]
Cannabis reform[edit]
During the 2020 New Zealand cannabis referendum, Clark publicly supported the "Yes" vote campaign to decriminalise recreational cannabis, arguing that prohibition did not work. She also featured in the "We Do" campaign supporting the proposed "Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill."[165][166]
Israeli–Palestinian conflict[edit]
During the 2023 Israel-Hamas War, Clark criticised the decision by New Zealand and several other Western governments to halt their aid contributions to UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East) following allegations that several UNRWA workers had participated in the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. She said it was "most regrettable that countries have acted in this precipitous way to defund the organisation on the basis of allegations". While Clark acknowledged that the allegations against UNRWA were serious, she said that "defunding the agency without knowing the outcome of the investigation was not the right decision."[167]
AUKUS[edit]
In April 2024, Clark criticised the National-led coalition government's interest in associate membership of AUKUS, stating that New Zealand foreign policy towards its Western allies was lurching away from "hitherto bipartisan settings." She described this shift as "profoundly undemocratic". Clark also said "that New Zealand has worked on a bipartisan basis for decades to balance its economic interests, democratic values, and nuclear-free and independent foreign policy." She expressed concerns about the country getting drawn into geopolitical games.[168]
Patronage
In popular culture[edit]
In 1996, Clark guest starred as herself in popular New Zealand soap opera Shortland Street.[188] A satirical book, later adapted as a play, titled On the Conditions and Possibilities of Helen Clark Taking Me as Her Young Lover, by Richard Meros, was published by Lawrence and Gibson in 2005. Clark has also guest-starred on bro'Town, the New Zealand animated television series.[189]
In 2020, the Eden Park Trust Board requested the right to stage six concerts a year, without having to seek individual planning permission – a process that had forced it to drop past concert plans. Clark said concerts at Eden Park stadium would "represent a home invasion of noise" and told a planning hearing the bid for six gigs a year should be rejected. Clark lives four streets from the stadium and told the independent planning commission "one's home is one's sanctuary". The former prime minister moved into her home in 1981 when Eden Park was a venue for daytime cricket and rugby.[190]