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Analysis: Chris Hipkins is not blessed with an abundance of competent ministers, and in the past five weeks he has lost two of them: Transport Minister Michael Wood and today Justice Minister Kiri Allan, who resigned from her portfolios this morning after being charged with careless driving and refusing to accompany a police officer on Sunday night.
Last month Stuff published a story describing concerns about a “working relationship” in Allan’s office. Subsequent reporting revealed that Allan was on mental health leave and that her relationship with her partner had recently ended. Further stories documented concern from senior public servants regarding Allan’s conduct towards officials and staff, described as “yelling and screaming” and “low trust and respect of public servants”. The stories became a Wellington obsession.
They placed Chris Hipkins in an impossible position. He couldn’t stand Allan down for shouting at senior officials – a popular recreational activity among ministers across the political spectrum – or for being upset after a relationship breakup. It would have to be on the grounds of the mysterious working relationship, a charge Allan vehemently denied.
So, a suspension or dismissal would be unfair to his minister and reinforce the perception that his government was falling apart. But this left him vulnerable to the risk that Allan’s situation would deteriorate rather than improve. He would lose another minister anyway, but in circumstances outside his control. Beehive insiders were gloomily aware that this was not an unlikely outcome. And this worst-case scenario has now come to pass.
Allan entered parliament in 2017 and was promoted to Cabinet in late 2020, becoming Minister of Conservation and Emergency Management before taking time out in 2021 for cervical cancer treatment. One year after her return she was appointed Minister of Justice. It was a very rapid ascent and when Jacinda Ardern resigned at the beginning of 2023, Allan was one of the names floated as a possible deputy; perhaps even a future leader.
But in March of this year, Allan delivered a speech at Radio New Zealand’s head office. The occasion was the leaving event for her partner, Māni Dunlop, and Allan castigated the organisation for its ability to retain Māori staff. She later admitted that this could have been interpreted as a minister instructing the organisation on its operational management and apologised. A month later she defended her failure to declare a political donation from the Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon when she became Justice Minister.
Both Wood and Allan were the architects of their own downfall. But Wood was merely an idiot and his career is recoverable. Allan’s career is almost certainly over; she is now taking time off to consider her future, and this is both a personal and political tragedy. When Labour released a sequence of youth justice reforms last week, fronted by Hipkins, Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis and Allan, the latter was the only minister who appeared to be across the details of the changes. Now Hipkins will have to reallocate both her justice and regional development portfolios, both of which carry a very heavy workload.
When Allan was defending herself in response to allegations of inappropriate behaviour, she explained that she was “definitely not a Wellington politician. That is something I am not. I am from the regions.” Which was a little too cute: Allan was a former staffer in Helen Clark’s office, a former lawyer with Chen Palmer, the quintessential boutique Wellington law firm co-founded by a former prime minister.
But her statement draws attention to the high rate of attrition suffered by politicians from Allan’s region. So far this year the East Coast has lost Kiri Allan, Meka Whaitiri and Stuart Nash from Cabinet. Nash resigned after leaking confidential Cabinet information to donors, while Whaitiri defected to the Maori Party. And the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti based Green Party MP Elizabeth Kerekere resigned from her party’s list process after allegations of bullying. A troubled and damaged region of the country has lost most of its political representation, due to the failures and self-destructive antics of its politicians.
Correction: An earlier version of the story stated that Kiri Allan was charged with reckless driving and resisting arrest on Sunday night. This story has been updated after a press release from the police clarified the nature of the charges.
