Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye has announced she's quitting politics and is looking forward to "being a hippy on Great Barrier".
National MP Nikki Kaye supports National MP Amy Adams as she announces she will stand for National Party leader. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
The National Party that started this week looks nothing like the party that will finish it.
Nikki Kaye began the week as deputy leader of the National Party, but she's now among a handful of others who will step down at the 2020 election.
Kaye said she couldn't have predicted the turn of recent events within the party but her decision to resign isn't a reactionary one.
"It's sort of the most extraordinary thing I've seen in my life in politics and so I think that's one thing that I hope that people understand.
"The other thing is, being diagnosed with breast cancer, and I've not talked in detail about my health before, I don't see life as a situation whereby you can always plan things and my view is that you have to live every moment and I have given everything to the party and the country," she said in tears. "You have to know when your time is up and you've given it your all."
Kaye tries to live like she's only got twelve months left.
"I've been through a hell of a lot with breast cancer and I say to people that nothing could be worse than that..."
She says now's the right time for her to retire.
Judith Collin's didn't try to convince her otherwise "but I think she knows me well enough that when I've made a decision, I've made a decision".
The decision was not at all about Collins, she said.
The party president did try to persuade her though.
"While the timing is not great, I think that it is far more important to have a representative in Parliament that is hungry and ready to go and from my perspective I stepped up and I always said you've got to step up or step out and I think this is the right thing in terms of a chapter of my life."
Kaye is motivated as a politician as she feels a sense of compassion for people and believes in equality of opportunity. She's also being trying to ensure the National Party is progressive.
"It's also about fighting for freedom, whether it's same-sex marriage, whether it's the euthanasia debate, I've been a strong voice of freedom."
She was once called a glorified social worker. "I love the individual difference that I have made as a member of Parliament for Auckland Central."
Having served all of her adult life serving the public, Kaye's now looking forward to "being a hippy on Great Barrier, being on the couch in my jammies on a weeknight, these are the things that I've never experienced".
"Part of that is having my life back."
