Ex-minister Chester Borrows bows out of politics

National MP Chester Borrows will step down from politics next year - at the same time he faces trial on a careless driving charge.

The MP for Whanganui, whose constituency includes South Taranaki, told Prime Minister John Key more than six months ago that he wouldn’t be standing in the next election and said he always planned to only do four terms.

After being dropped as Minister for Courts and appointed Deputy Speaker of the House following the 2014 election, he said it was clear he would never be the Speaker or a minister again. In hindsight he said he ‘‘could have had more fights’’ because ‘‘sometimes bad behaviour is rewarded’’.

Borrows, 59, has increasingly spoken out since he was dropped from his ministerial role - including publicly disagreeing with Corrections Minister Judith Collins about her decision to stand down a gang member from his mentor work in prison.

The man at the centre of the controversy, Ngapari Nui, is a friend of Borrows and Collins suggested that was getting in the way of his judgement.

Borrows, 59, joined Parliament in 2005 after defeating the incumbent Labour MP Jill Pettis. He was appointed Minister for Courts in 2011. Borrows was formerly a police officer including a sole charge stint in Patea in South Taranaki. Upon leaving the force he worked as a lawyer in Hawera.

Last week Borrows’ application to toss out a careless driving charge was turned down.

He was charged with careless driving causing injury over an incident on March 22 during an anti-Trans Pacific Partnership protest in Whanganui.

Borrows was accused of injuring two protesters - he said his frustrations around that were a ‘‘separate issue’’ but he didn’t want to be remembered for it.

He wanted to be remembered for ‘‘being a fairly grunty politician, local advocate and someone who got a bit done’’.

‘‘The thing I’m proudest of from my work in here is something no one would even think of too much, and that is convincing (then Justice Minister) Simon Power in 2008 that we could take DNA off everybody arrested in the same way we can take fingerprints and photographs without having to go off and get a warrant.

‘‘What that means now is we will be able to identify an offender from the first time they leave blood, semen, saliva or hair at a scene...that single thing’s probably prevented more victims than anything we’ve done.’’

He was also proud of his work helping create the youth justice reforms that were introduced in 2008, which he said had resulted in the number of young people before the court ‘‘plummet’’ since they were implemented.

But being a Minister inside of Cabinet was always the goal for Borrows - something he never ticked off.‘‘In hindsight I wish I’d spoken out more rather than less.’’

Borrows said he wasn’t opposed to a new role overseas or returning to the court room as a lawyer and was ‘‘actively’’ looking for another job.