Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed an audience at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday, delivering a pointed message to Australian politicians about the growing challenges of societal polarization and mistrust. Now residing in Sydney and recently appointed as a lecturer and mentor at the University of Sydney, Ardern emphasized the urgent need for political leaders to rebuild trust by addressing financial insecurity.

Speaking alongside author Anna Funder at a forum exploring whether disagreement can occur without division, Ardern highlighted the dangers of binary thinking and escalating political rhetoric. She argued that politicians have often intensified societal cleavages rather than alleviating them. “We have a responsibility not to engage in binary thinking, not to engage in the language of violence, [but] to rebuild trust by building financial security in a time of deep insecurity,” she said.

Ardern traced rising insecurity in recent decades to the transformative effects of globalization, which has led to a backlash against institutions such as the World Trade Organization. This climate, she said, gave rise to political movements like Brexit and leaders including former U.S. President Donald Trump, who have capitalized on public grievance. “Politicians offered proposals such as Brexit in response to the insecurity—saying ‘Here’s what you blame’—which then paved the way for the rise of leaders like Donald Trump,” she noted.

The former prime minister also spoke about the growing depth of political divisions, where opposing viewpoints are held with such moral certainty that constructive dialogue becomes difficult. Referencing the heightened tensions following the recent alleged attack on independent Australian MP Helen Haines, Ardern did not address the incident directly but underscored the importance of responsible political tone.

Ardern drew attention to the role of social media in hardening opinions and limiting the capacity for political debate. She reflected on her own experience as the youngest MP in New Zealand when first elected in 2008, noting her initial optimism about social media’s potential to connect politicians with voters. However, that perspective shifted drastically after the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019, an attack she described as “weaponised” through online radicalization and amplification via platforms like YouTube and Facebook.

“This is when I fully understood the weaponisation,” she said, referencing how domestic terrorism was facilitated by these networks to incite violence and spread extremist ideologies.

Ardern warned that rising mistrust—and the political failure to address it—has cultivated a crisis of leadership. “At every point where you see this spike in mistrust, you see this disruption in what people are feeling and experiencing, and a failure of a political response to it,” she said. “We have not just a crisis of trust; we have a crisis of leadership.”

Offering a potential path forward, Ardern suggested that empathy, humility, and curiosity should play greater roles in politics. “What empathy brings to politics is a thing that we’re missing now. It brings humility, it brings curiosity,” she said. “If we had more humility in politics—what a difference that would make.”