Do we like Helen Clark?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Decades of putting her name to LGBTQ+, women's and global health causes, with a ruled-against election spending row and a contested China stance holding her back from the top.
Clark is the long-haul version of a politician. She taught political studies at the University of Auckland, spent 27 years in Parliament, held ministerial posts including health from 1987, and was prime minister for three straight terms from 1999 to 2008. After that she became the first woman to run the UN Development Programme.
On the harm test, she does well. She voted yes on the 2004 Civil Union Bill when it passed 65 to 55, and she says she is proud it paved the way for marriage equality in 2013. She also backed Fran Wilde's Homosexual Law Reform Bill before she was PM, and after office kept turning up for the community, including Auckland's 2018 Pride Gala.
Her words are consistent with the votes. In 2018 she said LGBTI rights are human rights that must be upheld, and she talked about the “thick layer of men in the middle” holding women back in business. Nothing turned up on her and trans issues specifically, so that is a gap in the record, not a tick. Nor did we find her working with anyone pushing harm, and her recent work is pandemic preparedness and vaccines.
Now the stain. In 2005 Labour's pledge card was paid for from parliamentary funds. The Electoral Commission believed it pushed the party over its spending limit, and an NZ Herald editorial reported the Auditor-General ruled it a misuse of public money. Clark argued the Parliamentary Service Commission had approved the spend, and that changing the rules afterwards was like “a referee changing the rules after the game”. Police found a case but chose not to prosecute.
Her latest stoushes are over foreign policy, and where you land depends on your politics. In September 2025 she went to China's military parade in Beijing with John Key, in a private capacity, calling it “a line call”. Defence Minister Judith Collins questioned it, while Clark said “We have to engage” with China. In the same year she said New Zealand had placed itself on the wrong side of history over Palestine.
Nothing new has blown up around her lately. In February 2026 she asked the government to be more open about any critical minerals deal with the US, noting that large-scale mining could damage the environment. She chairs the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, so that is her day job talking.