Hey Australia, can we have Pauline Hanson? We’ll gladly give you Jacinda Ardern.

Politics makes for strange envy.

Across the Tasman, Australia has the blunt, unapologetic force of Pauline Hanson. Here in New Zealand, we had the polished, globally adored Jacinda Ardern. If you judge by overseas headlines alone, you would think we were the lucky ones.

Many Kiwis would disagree.

Hanson is not subtle. She does not wrap her politics in soft language or Instagram-ready empathy. She says what she thinks, takes the backlash on the chin and keeps going. You always know where she stands. There is no carefully focus-grouped kindness, no choreographed sincerity. Just retail politics delivered with a sledgehammer.

Ardern, on the other hand, built an international brand on “kindness” and progressive prestige. She was celebrated on magazine covers, praised on global stages and embraced by foreign commentators who rarely had to live with the consequences of her decisions.

Here at home, the mood was far more divided.

Under Ardern’s leadership, New Zealand endured some of the toughest lockdowns in the democratic world. Businesses folded. Workers faced mandates that put livelihoods on the line. Communities were split between the compliant and the condemned. Billions were borrowed. The cost of living climbed. The glow from overseas did not pay the grocery bill. Crime statistics worsened. She even gave millions to our biggest gang.

Hanson would have been ferociously criticised in Wellington drawing rooms. She would have been called every name under the sun. But she would also have forced uncomfortable debates into the open instead of smothering them under a blanket of moral superiority.

There is a growing appetite in New Zealand for leaders who are less concerned with how they are profiled in New York and more concerned with how they are judged in Napier, Invercargill and West Auckland. Leaders who do not confuse branding with backbone.

So here is the tongue-in-cheek proposal.

Australia, we will happily send Ardern your way permanently. You can keep the speeches, the fellowships and the carefully curated legacy tours. In return, lend us Hanson for a term or two. We might find that a dose of unapologetic plain speaking is exactly what this country needs.

At the very least, it would make Question Time interesting again.

Of course, neither country is likely to agree to such a trade. But the fact that some Kiwis would even joke about it says something. The era of halo politics is over. The appetite now is for grit, clarity and leaders who are not afraid of being unpopular if it means being honest.

Australia, what do you say?