Kiri Allan

Did You Know?

• Allan was born in Te Karaka and is of Ngāti Ranginui and Ngāti Tūwharetoa descent.
• She was raised in a Pentecostal Christian community and later joined the Rātana church.
• After her law degree, she worked as a judge's clerk and at law firms ChenPalmer and Kāhui Legal.

Member of Parliament

Allan stood for Labour in the East Coast electorate in the 2017 general election and was placed 21 on Labour's party list. Former deputy prime minister Sir Michael Cullen and his wife, former MP Lady Anne Collins, served as her campaign chairs and political mentors. She came second to Anne Tolley but entered Parliament via the party list. In her maiden speech on 9 November 2017, she recalled first seeing the Beehive at age 17 and recited a poem she had written then. During her first term, Allan served on the finance and expenditure committee and the primary production committee, and was elected a junior whip of the Labour Party. She joined the Epidemic Response Committee during the COVID-19 pandemic and chaired Labour's rural caucus. In 2018, she launched the podcast Authorised By with Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick, aiming to connect with voters. By the end of the year, she was considered a strong backbench performer and a potential future minister. On conscience issues, Allan voted for the third readings of the End of Life Choice Bill and Abortion Legislation Bill, though she had opposed the End of Life Choice Bill at second reading over concerns about protecting vulnerable people and supported a binding referendum on it. Ahead of the 2020 election, she was ranked 25 on Labour's list and selected again for East Coast. After the election, she was among MPs who received petitions calling for changes to laws on Māori wards and constituencies.

Minister in the Sixth Labour Government

On 2 November 2020, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern appointed Allan to Cabinet as Minister for Conservation and Minister for Emergency Management, with associate responsibilities in Arts, Culture and Heritage and Environment. In early 2021, she led emergency management press conferences about tsunami threats after severe earthquakes in the Kermadec Islands, which triggered the largest evacuation in New Zealand history. Her communication style drew praise, and it later emerged she had received a stage 3 cervical cancer diagnosis on the same morning as the disaster. She took three months leave for treatment and was eventually declared cancer-free. As conservation minister, she oversaw the Jobs for Nature scheme and the biodiversity strategy, and announced a review of the Wildlife Act 1953 in December 2021. That same month, as Emergency Management minister, she announced work to modernise emergency management legislation. As associate minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, she was responsible for a new law establishing a public holiday for Matariki from 2022. In a June 2022 reshuffle, she became Minister of Justice and Associate Minister of Finance. Hipkins kept her as justice minister, promoted her to tenth in Cabinet, and added Minister for Regional Development and Associate Minister of Transport. She was a lead minister in the response to Cyclone Gabrielle in the Gisborne and Bay of Plenty regions.

Controversies

On 31 March 2023, Allan gave a speech at Radio New Zealand's Wellington office at a farewell event for departing employee Māni Dunlop, who was then her fiancée. Dunlop had resigned after not being offered the Morning Report role, with commentators suggesting her engagement to Allan, a senior Cabinet minister, made covering crime and justice stories difficult. In her speech, Allan commented on RNZ's alleged inability to retain Māori employees and suggested the senior leadership team should examine the issue. She later acknowledged her comments might have been interpreted as giving RNZ instruction on managing staff, which ministers cannot do, and apologised. Three months later, it was reported that Allan and Dunlop had ended their relationship. During the 2020 election campaign, Allan received donations from Meng Foon, then Gisborne mayor and later Race Relations Commissioner, including a rent subsidy from one of Foon's companies for her electoral office. When Allan became justice minister in 2022, she gained ministerial responsibility for Foon. The donations were revealed in April 2023. Allan had made the required declarations but was criticised for not proactively identifying a conflict of interest, which she later corrected.

Personal life

Allan married Natalie Coates in 2016 after same-sex marriage was legalised in New Zealand. They had a baby just before the 2017 election, with fellow Labour MP Tāmati Coffey as the biological father; Allan brought the baby to Parliament. She and Coates divorced in May 2022. Allan had a previous relationship with Labour MP Meka Whaitiri. In April 2021, she announced medical leave after a stage 3 cervical cancer diagnosis, and in December 2021 she said she was cancer-free and encouraged regular testing. In 2022, she became engaged to RNZ presenter Māni Dunlop, but they broke up in 2023. In June 2023, she took leave from Parliament after the breakup, and on 3 July she went on leave again following concerns about her management style and staff relationships. On 23 July 2023, she was involved in a car crash in Wellington and charged with careless driving and refusing to accompany a police officer, also receiving an infringement for excess breath alcohol. She resigned from all ministerial portfolios the next day. On 4 September 2023, she revealed diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2024, she said she had intended to end her life the night of the accident. After leaving Parliament, in October 2023 she announced she was writing a book for Penguin and had launched a lobbying consultancy, registered two weeks after resigning as justice minister while still an MP, drawing criticism over a perceived revolving door between politics and lobbying.