New Zealand’s incoming Labour prime minister appears to be some kind of insane person.

According to Jacinda Ardern, capitalism is a “blatant failure” and New Zealand has “the worst homelessness in the developed world”:

Speaking in her first sit-down interview, on TV3’s The Nation, Ms Ardern said New Zealanders were not feeling the benefits of prosperity. Asked if capitalism had failed New Zealanders on low incomes, Ms Ardern was blunt.

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Capitalism is a "blatant failure" when it comes to housing the poor, Jacinda Ardern has told @TheNationNZ https://t.co/K6cGfc3nmE #nationnz — Newshub (@NewshubNZ) October 20, 2017

“If you have hundreds of thousands of children living in homes without enough to survive, that’s a blatant failure. What else could you describe it as?”

I’d describe it as Venezuela.

“When you have a market economy, it all comes down to whether or not you acknowledge where the market has failed and where intervention is required. Has it failed our people in recent times? Yes.”

Then again: “Unemployment is at an eight year low of 4.8 percent. The country's terms of trade – the measure of our ability to pay our way in the world – are close to historic highs. The current account deficit, at 2.8 percent of the value of the economy, is low and contained by New Zealand standards, and the foreign debt level has also been shrinking.” Do please continue, alternative reality lady:

“Wages are not keeping up with inflation (and) and how can you claim you’ve been successful when you have growth at roughly 3 per cent, but you have the worst homelessness in the developed world?”

So children inside homes don’t have “enough to survive” and people without homes are multiplying like hobgoblins. New Zealand’s electoral system has horked up a real winner here. Unsurprisingly, Peter van Onselen is a fan:

Is it time for Australia to take another look at our electoral system? Perhaps it should look across the ditch when doing so … Why not look at wholesale electoral reform, perhaps embracing a model similar to New Zealand’s?

Someone familiar with him once described Peter as “the dumbest smart person I’ve ever met”. Delete one word from that definition and it’s perfectly accurate.

UPDATE: