New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ahern spurns girl's 'dragon bribe'

New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ahern has written to an 11-year-old girl explaining that she couldn’t accept a “bribe” of $5 to conduct research into dragons.

The girl, identified only as Victoria, had written to the prime minister to say that she wanted to be given telekinetic powers so that she could train dragons, and included the money with her letter.

In a personally signed letter with the official letterhead of the New Zealand premiership, Ms Ahern thanked Victoria for getting in touch but had to dash her hopes around dragons.

“We were very interested to hear your suggestions about psychics and dragons, but unfortunately we are not currently doing any work in either of these areas,” she wrote.

“I am therefore returning your bribe money, and I wish you all the best in your quest for telekinesis, telepathy, and dragons.”

She added a post script which said “I’ll still keep an eye out for those dragons. Do they wear suits?”

The letter came to light after a Reddit user posted it on the web forum. He explained how his sister had become interested in telekinesis after watching Stranger Things, the spooky Netflix series.

She wanted the government to “make [dragons] telekinetic... and wanted to find out what they know about dragons and if they had found any yet, so she could train them”, he said.