Jacinda Ardern 'big enough' to look after herself - Mark Richardson

  • 27/02/2018

The AM Show host Mark Richardson has waded into the debate over Jacinda Ardern's controversial 60 Minutes interview.

"She's big enough, and apparently not-so-ugly enough to look after herself," he said on The AM Show on Tuesday.

Ms Arden made worldwide headlines after being interviewed by Australian journalist Charles Wooley.

During the 13-minute report, Mr Wooley said he'd met many Prime Ministers, but "none so young, not too many so smart, and never one so attractive".

Much of the report was focused on Ms Ardern's pregnancy. Mr Wooley told Ms Ardern and 'first bloke' Clarke Gayford it was "interesting how much people have been counting back to the conception".

Ms Ardern screwed her face up and laughed it off, and Mr Gayford leaned in and asked, "Really?"

But The AM Show host Duncan Garner wasn't laughing.

"Can you believe, this is Charles Wooley - his name's Charles Wooley, send him to the knacker's yard because this guy belongs in the 1960s," he fumed on Tuesday.

Amanda Gillies said the interview was "creepy and inappropriate", calling Mr Wooley a "dirty perv".

But then Richardson stepped in, telling his co-hosts that the Prime Minister of New Zealand didn't need defending.

"Can we stop protecting Ardern," Richardson said.

"It doesn't matter that Shirley of Timaru is outraged, and all of a sudden there's a big story about it.

"Yes that bloke's got creepy down real well. It's a difficult skill to master."

But Ms Ardern told The AM Show Mr Wooley's questioning didn't bother her.

"It wasn't the first time I'd been asked, by the way. Others had asked me before. It was obviously just the first time an answer had been broadcast like that," she said.

"Perhaps I've become desensitised. You know, I've been asked such probing questions into our personal lives over the last year that perhaps these things don't occur to me as much anymore. But, I'd say in part it's because I actually also didn't care."

Newshub.