GO HARD OR GO HOME
Kiri Allan
Honest, fierce and deeply moving, Kiri Allan’s memoir asks what it costs to keep going when you can’t live in half measures, and what it takes to rebuild your life after a series of poor choices. Kiri will kōrero with Kerensa Johnston about finding her way back to Te Ao Marama.
Kiri Allan’s memoir is the story of the person beyond the headlines, from church-going child to charismatic hitchhiker to precocious law student to former politician. Events a government might encounter once in a generation stacked up: a terrorist attack, a volcanic eruption, destructive and deadly weather events, a global pandemic . . .
Kiri Allan’s six-year political career spanned some of the most challenging times in recent history. As a highly recognisable figure, her overlapping personal story also played out under scrutiny: divorce, new parenthood, cancer diagnosis and treatment, and mental health struggles culminating in the car crash that led to her resignation.
Honest, fierce and deeply moving, Kiri’s memoir asks what it costs to keep going when you can’t live in half measures, and what it takes to rebuild your life.
Kiri Allan
Kerensa Johnston
Kerensa Johnston is a lawyer who has worked as a solicitor in the private sector, as a barrister, and as a legal academic at the Auckland University Faculty of Law, where she specialised in Māori legal development, public law, land law and international law. She is the Chair of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, the Māori Centre of Research Excellence and the Chair of Ngāti Tama ki te Tau Ihu Charitable Trust. From 2013 to 2025, she served as Chief Executive and General Counsel of Wakatū Incorporation. She is a Trustee for Te Here-ā-Nuku (Making the Tenths Whole) and holds governance and advisory roles across a range of diverse organisations.
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