Allan said she was not under pressure to leave as she was a high-polling female candidate, but she was planning to go at the next election.
“They wanted me to stay on in my MP role, but I wanted to go. That wasn’t because I didn’t love being an advocate for our region or for our people; it was just that I had this philosophy … kind of like, ‘go hard or go home’. I felt like I’d run hard with the ball and I was ready to give up at the next election.”
Her book, Go Hard or Go Home, is being released on August 4.
“Penguin is my publisher and it’s all been a bit of a whirlwind in the last couple of weeks getting it all to its endpoint, which has been quite fun.”
The book was written in two parts.
The majority was completed in 2023 but “I was naughty a little and life took over and it got put on the backburner”.
“The publishers were chasing me because I am about two years late.”
Author Dame Fiona Kidman gave Allan space to write the book in Wellington and was a motivating factor in her getting it done.
“She’s a literary genius. She has this little room where she locked me up and made me write and it was awesome. She has this incredible way of pulling stories out from people and she doesn’t do anything but talk. Like talk to make you talk, make you tell stories and then off to the room you run and start writing away. I’m forever indebted to her.”
Kiri Allan has kept busy since resigning from politics and says she is enjoying her life based in Whakatāne these days.
Allan has kept busy outside of writing.
“I’ve got three businesses. One’s a consultancy that does a lot of work … advisory work to Government, local government, to private entities on policy issues of the day, but I do tend to spend quite a lot of time in climate, climate adaptation, emergency management, natural risks and hazards. That’s kind of a space I really enjoy,” said Allan, who was Emergency Management Minister during her tenure.
Her second business involves renewable energy infrastructure.
The third is focused on establishing large-scale renewable energy on indigenous lands in New Zealand and the United States. Her job is to “try to get the best deal for landowners”, and she said it had proved “really fulfilling”.
Born in Te Karaka, near Gisborne, Allan grew up in the village of Paengaroa, near Te Puke.
She shifted to Whakatāne to be closer to her now 8-year-old daughter, whom she coaches in multiple sports.
“We’ve got netball, we’ve got soccer, swimming, jiu jitsu, athletics in the summer. Whatever she’s into at the time … she’s into Rippa rugby at the moment and she’s just about to start kī o rahi and kapa haka.”
Allan said her lifestyle was certainly different these days and she was enjoying being away from the intensity of politics.
“There’s still a lot of crossover. I travel a lot domestically and internationally, but I still have a lot of time to be a mum. I love I’ve got a big native backyard and so you get to enjoy the birds while you’re working from home and you set your own pace … I went out and played golf this morning.”
Despite how her career in Parliament ended, she enjoyed the help she was able to give as a politician.
“The thing I loved about politics was that you get to advocate for communities and I still feel like I get to do that in my life right now.
“At my core is advocacy and particularly speaking for or advocating the needs of communities like when I was the MP for the East Coast.”
Asked if she would recommend politics to young people, she said there was a role for rangatahi but warned it was “a really hard road” for a couple of reasons.
“One is that it consumes your life. I think also it colours you for the rest of your life. Some people garnish a large public profile. The things that you say and that you do in those roles, they define you.”
Allan, now in her early 40s and with a background in law, said if she had the chance to do it again, she would not have gone into politics so young.
“I think I would have done it a little older personally – maybe in my later 40s.”
Her legal background remains relevant.
“I guess law kind of probably shapes everything I do. Once you’re a lawyer, it’s the way that you understand the world. It’s the way that you see the world. I think it’s one of the reasons that made me a good politician, because I could understand how law was made and you could understand the levers of Parliament.”
Her book gives readers a good insight into the inner workings of Parliament.
“They’ll find a pretty free and frank reflection of the politics behind politics. You also get an insider’s view into Whakaari [White Island tragedy], Covid, the Christchurch terrorism events, the numerous cyclones that impacted Te Tairāwhiti – you get to see the politics of that and also the personal reflections. You get a bit of an insight into my life and why I decided to run as a politician as well.”
The book also documents her diagnosis and recovery from cervical cancer and mental health struggles.
“That’s all in there. What it’s like to go through cancer in the public life in a public role. I also give reflections on mental health and some of the challenges and the lived experiences of what those things look like in practice.”
Allan is happy in life these days.
“Hopefully the best I’ve ever been is how I’d describe it. There’s something quite peaceful coming out the other side where you can still do all the stuff that you love to do – advocate for communities – but do that with a lot of balance, taking time for family, getting out there in the sun, playing some golf, badly, but getting out there.”