Former Justice Minister Kiri Allan has broken her silence, detailing what led to the moment that cut her political career short. Breakfast presenter Jenny-May Clarkson and producer Tom Day travelled to Whakatāne to meet her.
Warning: This story discusses themes of suicide that some readers may find distressing.
Allan was touted as one of New Zealand's best up-and-coming ministers and potentially even a future prime minister.
But the night of July 23 last year would change all of that.
Allan crashed her car and was charged with careless driving and failing to accompany a police officer.
She has pleaded not guilty to the charges and will face a judge alone trial on May 22.
Now, she's revealing in an exclusive TV interview with Breakfast the moments that led up to the car crash that would end her political career.
What happened that night?
When Allan arrived at the Beehive that fateful Sunday, it was her first time back at work since announcing new legislation on Wednesday. The government had introduced a new offence specifically targetting ram-raiding as well as well as a change to enable 12- and 13-year-olds alleged to have committed the new offence to be charged in the Youth Court.
Once in the office, Allan recalled, "I just remember looking around my office, and I had my Cabinet papers there and just going 'what the heck am I doing here?' And 'why the heck are you here?' And perhaps call that the straw that broke the camel's back."
Allan said she was going to take her own life.
"I made a decision — and it was a decision I'll regret for the rest of my life — is that I decided to drive from point A, to a place of what I'd hoped was solitude, or solace."
It had been raining that night and as she was driving, she crashed her car in front of an apartment block.
Onlookers came pouring out, Allan said, and "people recognised who I was straight away".
"I had to get on the phone pretty quickly to Ministerial Services, and work, and all those types of things that you have to do."
She said she sat on a kerb recalling that she had to jump off the phone as the police walked up the footpath to speak to her.
In an interview with TVNZ's Breakfast, she revealed the pressure of politics and the lead-up to what she called a "complete breakdown". (Source: 1News)
After a "good discussion" with the responding officers, Allan said their conversation turned to "whether or not I had the right to legal counsel and at what point that kicked in".
"So obviously that's something that's going through the court at the moment."
When asked by Clarkson how she had got to that space where she had made the decision to take her own life, Allan was frank.
"It's an odd rationalisation process that you go actually, you know, 'am I better off here, causing all this harm? Or to not be here, and cause less harm in the long term'."
But while she said it was challenging remembering the sequences that led up the crash, she wasn't quite defeated.
"I do know that there was this, very slim, but desire to kind of just be saved. And yeah, there'd been other circumstances where I haven't had that point of wanting to be saved and probably gone further."
What was the straw that broke the camel's back?
Four days prior to the crash, Allan — along with then prime minister Chris Hipkins — had announced new legislation to get tougher on youth offenders.
Ram-raids had become a daily headline that the Labour government was struggling to be able to control.
"There was this massive backlash by the electorate and it was all related to crime justice issues and those things. But really it was targeted to our kids and those kids were young Māori kids, young Polynesian kids. And so, you know, there was so much pressure to get harder, get tougher," Allan said.
A new criminal offence was created addressing ram-raid offending, which would carry a maximum 10-year sentence.
"Ram-raids are destructive and cause considerable harm to their victims. This new offence sends a strong signal that the significant harm caused by ram-raids won't be tolerated, while also providing additional tools to be able to respond to those involved in this type of offending, particularly 12- and 13-year-olds," Hipkins said at the time.
But for Allan, it wasn't a law that she wanted to introduce.
"It's like anything, right? You have to suck some things up and we might not agree with everything, but you crack on. And then there's some things that are so fundamental to who you are. Why you got into the law, in my instance, and why I got into politics and those types of things," she said.
"Some things just fly fundamentally in the face of the values and the principals that you hold."
And it wasn't just values — for Allan, it was something personal.
"I saw most of my brothers go through the criminal justice system very young. I remember asking myself back then like, 'Why are all these incredible, talented young Māori men and women, why are we inherently bad? Is there something that's fundamental to our core that makes us inherent criminals that need to be chucked away?'"
She now says she would have made a different decision.
"I should've. I probably didn't even think of the different decisions that I could've made at that time — and this is no slight on any of my colleagues or anything like that."
Allan called it "very much a personal decision" for herself "because of what my own particular values are".
"You sign up and when the Cabinet makes a decision, that is a decision and that is what it was. I had other options available to me that I didn't make and I didn't take."
When asked by Clarkson if she should have resigned at the point where the announcement was being made, Allan said it was an option which "was available to me that I didn't take".
The announcement was Allan's first since coming back from mental health leave.
She now acknowledges that she went back to work too soon, but puts that responsibility on herself.
"It was something that I had the greatest knowledge on because it was within my portfolio area and it was also something I felt very passionate about.
"[I] put [it] on myself to contribute to that conversation and it was a conversation we'd had on multiple occasions. But to put up a particular view and to advocate for that view, so that's why I went back to work."
So how is Kiri now?
"I'm really good at the moment," Allan said.
"Feeling quite peaceful, but also a little bit excited about this year."
Allan said it's "been a nice period of time to reflect".
It's also been a time to slow down, she said.
"I think for a really long time, prior to politics as well, I've just lived at such a fast pace — whether that was in law [or in politics].
"I forgot to water my garden at home; didn't take the time to smell the roses, so to speak."
But that doesn't mean she's stayed away from some of the political discourse.
"I was just at Turangawaewae in the weekend, you know these Rātana — we're all going up to Waitangi."
Allan said there "are some things that are fundamental to our nation".
"We have moved so much over the last couple of hundred years that it's not for this particular iteration of government to reel and peel things back. So I think that's gonna be a big focus of this year — unifying our people."
She's also loving getting to spend more time with her daughter, who's turning seven this year.
Her daughter's mother tongue is te reo Māori, and Allan said she wants to shield her from "some of the rhetoric that's going on in the mainstream at the moment about the significance of our language".
"That's an experience I don't want my child to have to go through, or any other child in this country ever again."
But she wants her young daughter to know that no one is perfect.
"Even when we look at our strongest points — many of us, and I don't think it's just myself — but we can be a little bit broken inside," she said.
"It's about how you work through, and pull through, and step through those periods of time in your life to find a new path, and that's gonna be OK."
Allan also celebrated being two years cancer-free last month.
"They say that five years is the magic number, so I'll keep on keeping on. It was definitely a milestone that brought a bit of a smile to my face."
What reflections does she have?
Allan said despite what happened, she believes her Labour colleagues did what they could when she was struggling.
"I think that people tried and I think it's a really fast-paced, full-on environment with a thousand different decisions that have to be made in every single second," she said.
"I think people did the best they could have with the tools that we had at the time."
She hopes there will be more mental health support for ministers going forward.
"I think regardless of what side of the aisle you sit on, I think it would be of value to all of our ministers and help provide a better environment, ultimately."
While Allan held multiple portfolios, was responsible for major legislative changes, and managed crises such as Tairāwhiti's Cyclone Gabrielle response, she said it was the little things that she was most proud of.
"One of the greatest impacts is knowing that other people from places like here know that they can come from anywhere and step into those positions of power, that those halls of power are theirs," she said.
She remembers one fond moment taking school children from Te Kohanga Reo o Te Teko into Parliament.
"They just ran and they were loud and I loved it, you know? These halls are theirs, this place is theirs," she said.
"May our country be all the better for it, that we have people from so many different places coming to add their voice to the way in which the rules for all of us should be made."
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