Outgoing Labour MP Faafoi delivers valedictory speech
Outgoing Labour MP and Minister Kris Faafoi has bowed out of politics, delivering a funny and heartfelt speech to Parliament.
Faafoi, the first MP of Tokelauan descent, paid tribute to firmed, colleagues and launch a staunch defence of his changes to public media and broadcasting minister
‘‘PM my final note to you is to say it was a deep honour to accompany you on your visit to Tokelau.
‘‘The time on the HMNZS Otago will have to go down as my highlight of the last 5 years. PM, the experience of going back to the place my mother and father were born and raised meant so much, and to do it accompanying you as our PM was next level.’’
He also joked that ten years after promising Jacinda Ardern $500 towards an election camping if she danced at the Pasifika festival, he had come through with the money, providing a receipt to the prime minister during his speech.
‘‘I thought about adjusting it for inflation, but . . . ,’’, Faafoi quipped to uproarious applause.
For months, people had been asking Labour MP Kris Faafoi when he planned to retire from politics.
When asked, he’d quip back with veiled pleasantries. He even claimed he’d miss the press gallery too much if he ever left.
‘‘I told everyone I loved it, and I do. But there’s a time.
And this is it,’’ he said yesterday morning.
Faafoi has been in Parliament for 17 years, in various roles. He walked in as a TVNZ journalist, becoming a member of the Parliamentary press gallery.
While he deflected questions, everyone knew Faafoi had set a timer. ‘‘As the PM [prime minister] said, I spoke to her towards the end of last term. Family, again, was the issue, but I was convinced to stay because there were things that needed to get finished.’’
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern finally confirmed his resignation on June 13. Less than two weeks later, Faafoi delivered his valedictory speech to Parliament.
It’s his birthday. But he doesn’t think being able to leave the Beehive is a birthday present, per se. He’s turning 46 – a good time to leave, he said, while there was still time to start something new.
But another birthday played a far bigger role in Faafoi’s decision to leave Parliament. On Wednesday, his youngest son turned five. Faafoi spent the morning taking his boy, Theo, to his first day of school. It’s moments like these Faafoi wants more of.
‘‘I’m lucky, my kids love me, and I’m happy about that. But I think I’ve missed out on things that I’d prefer to have been there for, for both George and Fred – the older two.
‘‘With Theo, when he started school, that was my line in the sand for me to say it’s time to go.’’
Faafoi left journalism to become the chief press secretary of the Opposition Labour Party for leader Phil Goff, then stood for Labour in 2010, winning the Mana electorate in a by-election.
When Ardern led the Labour Party to victory in 2017, Faafoi was made Minister of Civil Defence, Commerce and Consumer Affairs.
Faafoi decided not to stand for Mana at the 2020 election, with his family leaving Kāpiti, and he voiced his plan to resign to Labour and Ardern.