Kiri Allan facts for kids

Quick facts for kids The Honourable Kiri Allan
Allan in 2019
51st Minister of Justice
In office 14 June 2022 – 24 July 2023
Prime Minister	Jacinda Ardern Chris Hipkins
Preceded by	Kris Faafoi
Succeeded by	Ginny Andersen
Minister for Regional Development
In office 1 February 2023 – 24 July 2023
Prime Minister	Chris Hipkins
Preceded by	Stuart Nash (as Minister for Economic and Regional Development)
Succeeded by	Kieran McAnulty
14th Minister of Conservation
In office 6 November 2020 – 14 June 2022
Prime Minister	Jacinda Ardern
Preceded by	Eugenie Sage
Succeeded by	Poto Williams
27th Minister for Emergency Management
In office 6 November 2020 – 14 June 2022
Prime Minister	Jacinda Ardern
Preceded by	Peeni Henare
Succeeded by	Kieran McAnulty
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for East Coast
In office 17 October 2020 – 14 October 2023
Preceded by	Anne Tolley
Succeeded by	Dana Kirkpatrick
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Labour party list
In office 23 September 2017 – 17 October 2020
Personal details
Born	Kiritapu Lyndsay Allan 1984 (age 39–40) Te Karaka, New Zealand
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Natalie Coates ​ ​ (m. 2016; div. 2022)​
Children	1
Profession	Lawyer

Kiritapu Lyndsay Allan (/ˈkɪɾi-, ˈælən/ born 1984) is a New Zealand lawyer and former politician. She was a member of Parliament (MP) in the New Zealand House of Representatives from 2017 to 2023, representing the Labour Party in the East Coast electorate.

Allan was a junior minister in the second term of Jacinda Ardern's Sixth Labour Government and a senior minister under Ardern's successor, Chris Hipkins. She held the positions of Minister for Emergency Management and Minister of Conservation from November 2020 to June 2022 and was Minister of Justice from June 2022 until July 2023.

In June 2023, concerns about how Allan treated her staff were raised. She took time off from her parliamentary duties after a relationship breakup and, on 24 July 2023, resigned from her ministerial roles after she was arrested for careless driving the previous night. In May 2024, Allan pleaded guilty and was convicted of two charges of careless driving and failing to accompany a police officer.

Early life

Allan was born in Te Karaka, of Ngāti Ranginui and Ngāti Tūwharetoa descent. She is the ninth of ten children and was named after her grandmother. As a baby, she was whāngai – given to an aunt and uncle, Gail and David Allan, who lived in Paengaroa. She was raised in a Pentecostal Christian community, which she said contributed to her perspective on helping others. Her family were cleaners and agricultural workers who experienced layoffs due to the "Rogernomics" reforms in the 1980s. Some family members had experiences with the criminal justice system and Allan later said that criminal justice reform was a motivator for her to enter both law and politics.

..... After being outed at 16, she was "ejected from the household for a time" and ultimately left the church when she was 18. She later joined the Rātana church.

Allan moved to Auckland at age 10; her secondary schooling was at Auckland Girls’ Grammar in Kahurangi, the reo Māori unit. She left high school at 16 and started work at a KFC franchise in West Auckland. She also joined the Service & Food Workers Union at that time. At 17, she hitchhiked south and took her next job as a cherry picker in Blenheim.

Returning to Auckland, she began university study at Unitec, studying Māori language and tikanga. The next year, she enrolled at Victoria University of Wellington where she studied law and politics, and joined the Labour Party. She decided on law because of advice from former University of Otago law professor Mark Henaghan, whom Allan befriended while working in a bar, and joined Labour after her politics lecturer Margaret Clark told her that joining a political party would teach her how politics worked.

During her university studies she interned with Prime Minister Helen Clark and later for Māori lawyer Annette Sykes.

Legal career

After finishing her law degree, Allan was a judge's clerk for a period before taking a role at law firm ChenPalmer, where she worked for two years. Later she joined Kāhui Legal, a specialist law firm focussed on issues related to Māori development in Whakatāne before standing as Labour candidate for the East Coast in 2017.

Member of Parliament

Allan stood for Labour in the East Coast electorate in the 2017 election and was placed 21 on Labour's party list. The former deputy prime minister, Sir Michael Cullen, and his wife, the former MP Lady Anne Collins were Allan's campaign chairs and political mentors. She came second to Anne Tolley in the election, but entered Parliament via the party list. In her maiden speech on 9 November 2017, Allan recalled the first time she saw the Beehive at age 17 and recited a poem she had written at the time.

In her first term in Parliament, Allan was a member of the finance and expenditure committee and the primary production committee. She was also elected a junior whip of the Labour Party. She joined the Epidemic Response Committee during the COVID-19 pandemic. She was also the chair of Labour's rural caucus.

In 2018, she launched the down-to-earth political podcast Authorised By with Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick. She got on well with Swarbrick and they both felt the average Kiwi on the street was detached from politics. By the end of the year, Allan was labelled a strong performer among backbenchers in Parliament and a potential future minister.

The 52nd Parliament voted on several conscience issues. .....

Ahead of the 2020 New Zealand general election, Allan was ranked at 25 on Labour's party list and was selected to contest the East Coast electorate again. Tolley retired, leaving the seat open. Amid a landslide nationwide victory for the Labour party, Allan defeated new National Party East Coast candidate Tania Tapsell by 6,331 votes to win her second term in Parliament and her first as an electorate representative. After the election, Allan was one of several MPs who received petitions calling on the government to change the laws related to Māori wards and constituencies.

Minister in the Sixth Labour Government

Electoral portrait, 2020

On 2 November 2020, prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced Kiri Allan would enter Cabinet during her second term in parliament, becoming Minister for Conservation and Minister for Emergency Management. In addition, Allan also assumed associate ministerial responsibilities in the Arts, Culture and Heritage and Environment portfolios.

Allan gained prominence in early 2021 when she fronted emergency management press conferences about tsunami threats following repeated severe earthquakes in the Kermadec Islands that led to the largest evacuation in New Zealand history. Allan's authoritative yet informal communication style was marked out for further praise when it was revealed she had a medical examination that later confirmed a stage 3 cervical cancer diagnosis on the same morning as the disaster. She took three months leave to seek treatment and was eventually declared cancer-free.

As conservation minister, Allan oversaw the continued roll-out of the Jobs for Nature employment scheme and implementation of the government's biodiversity strategy. She announced a review of the Wildlife Act 1953 in December 2021. One week later, as Minister for Emergency Management, Allan also announced work to modernise emergency management legislation. As Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Allan was responsible for a new law that marked the celebration of Matariki with a public holiday starting from 2022.

In a June 2022 reshuffle, Allan was promoted from her existing roles to instead be Minister of Justice. She also joined the government's economic ministerial group as an Associate Minister of Finance. Following Jacinda Ardern's resignation as prime minister in January 2023, Allan was speculated to be a Labour leadership candidate, but declined to run and instead co-nominated senior minister Chris Hipkins' successful candidacy. Hipkins, as the new prime minister, continued Allan in the justice portfolio, promoted her to tenth in the Cabinet, and also appointed her as 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.

As justice minister, Allan was a highly active legislator. At one point it was reported that of the 26 government bills being considered by committees, she was responsible for six of them. She led the government's work on electoral reform, sponsoring legislation on electoral finance reform, broader voter eligibility for New Zealanders living overseas, and reform of the Māori Electoral Option. A bill to lower the voting age to 16 was considered after the Crown lost in Make It 16 Incorporated v Attorney-General but was ultimately not progressed. In judicial system reform, Allan completed the government's long-promised repeal of three-strikes sentencing law, which had been linked to the over-incarceration of Māori, and also increased access to legal aid. Allan also led proposals related to the sale and supply of alcohol, hate speech, counter-terrorism, name suppression, surrogacy, and lobbying.

Heading into the 2023 general election, the government was criticised as being "soft on crime". In response, the government adopted "tougher" youth justice policies such as the creation of a new offence for ram-raiding, which Allan announced on 18 July 2023. Allan later said these policies were not aligned with her personal values and contributed to a mental health breakdown soon after.

In mid-2023, Allan was involved in a number of personal and professional scandals including making inappropriate comments about Radio New Zealand hiring practices and allegations of bullying within her ministerial offices (see: Controversies). Ultimately, Allan resigned from her ministerial roles and declined to seek re-election after being arrested for careless use of a motor vehicle and refusing to accompany a police officer when she crashed her ministerial car the night of 23 July 2023. In exit interviews the next year, Allan revealed that she had intended to end her life that night.

On 11 September 2023, Allan was granted the use of the honorific prefix The Honourable for life, in recognition of her term as a member of the Executive Council.

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, of whom fellow Labour MP Tāmati Coffey is the biological father. Allan brought the baby to Parliament. Allan and Coates divorced in May 2022. Allan had a previous relationship with another Labour Party MP, Meka Whaitiri.

In April 2021, Allan announced she would be taking medical leave from parliament after being diagnosed with stage 3 cervical cancer. In December 2021 she announced that after treatment she was cancer-free and encouraged others to have regular testing for different forms of cancer.

In 2022, Allan became engaged to RNZ National presenter Māni Dunlop, but they broke up in 2023. In June 2023, Allan took leave from Parliament following the breakup. On 3 July, Allan went on leave again. This decision followed concerns raised by public servants about her management style and her relationships with staff in her office.

On 23 July 2023, Allan was involved in a car crash in Wellington, and was charged with careless driving and refusing to accompany a police officer. She also received an infringement offence for excess breath alcohol. The following day, Allan resigned from all ministerial portfolios. Prime minister Chris Hipkins, noted that Allan's behaviour was related to the break-down of her relationship with Dunlop. On 4 September, Allan revealed that she had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2024, she revealed she had intended to end her life the night of her car accident.

After exiting Parliament, Allan announced in October 2023 she is writing a book to be published by Penguin and launched her own lobbying consultancy. The consultancy was registered two weeks after she resigned as justice minister, and while she was still an MP; Allan was criticised for contributing to the perception of a "revolving door" between politics and lobbying that she was responsible for regulating while justice minister.