Judith Collins – the Gift that keeps Giving to the Opposition?

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From a news report;

Ms Collins resigned before the election after being accused of working with the Whale Oil blog after emails were released suggesting she was “gunning” for former director of the Serious Fraud Office, Adam Feeley, when she was the minister in charge of the SFO.

A report by former High Court judge Lester Chisholm into her actions will be released this week, with some media reporting that it is expected to clear her name.

After the Old Boys’ Network swarmed around now-disgraced CERA boss, and sexual-harrasser, Roger Sutton, with support and to downplay the seriousness of his behaviour – this blogger predicts the following outcome of the investigation into Judith Collins.

  • She will be fully exonerated.
  • The Prime Minister will say he had faith in her all along. (He has already intimated this, “If Judith is cleared that’s great – that would be my expectation“.)
  • Bundles of flowers will be sent to her office (note to florists in Parliamentary precinct: stock up).
  • Cameron Slater will claim full vindication and become even more obnoxious and unpredictable in his behaviour (if that were at all possible).
  • Critics of this increasingly authoritarian government will think twice before speaking out.
  • Collins will be restored as a Minister within twelve months, more vengeful,  and more dangerous than ever.
  • This government will become more emboldened than ever to pursue vindictive retribution against critics.

The report from Chisholm will most likely be a total whitewash.

No one should expect accountability from this government. They will see “accountability” as  weakness, and a third-term government cannot afford to show any hint of weakness.

After all, New Zealanders love ‘strong’ governments. Even Muldoon’s increasingly erratic administration might not have been voted out had it not been for Bob Jones’ NZ Party, which split the right-wing vote in 1984. The under-current from a significant portion of the population that holds irrational, conservative views should never be under-estimated.

It will be a mistake for Key to restore Collins as a Minister. But the pressure from her National party cronies will become irresistible, and Key will have no choice but to eventually yield.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

It will not be a decision that comes easily to our esteemed PM. Key is fully aware that Collins’ arrogance – like a certain ex-MP with a don’t-you-know-who-I-am‘ attitude – inevitably draws trouble to herself. The Oravida-China fiasco, where Collins used a tax-payer funded trip to promote her husband’s milk company in Beijing, made unwelcome headlines for the National Party for weeks.

Collins escaped that scandal only by the skin of her teeth, when the Opposition and Media onslaught ran out of steam.

Next up, Collins’ bizarre personal attack on one of the media’s most inoffensive Parliamentary journalists, Katie Bradford, where the Minister made outrageous allegations of impropriety.

Collins eventually had to retract and apologise –  no doubt after an increasingly irritated PM put the hard word on his errant Minister.

Not content to keep her head down, Collins pursued a  secret political relationship with far-right blogger and convicted criminal, Cameron Slater, which, when uncovered in Nicky Hager’s expose, ‘Dirty Politics‘,  was the straw that finally broke the ministerial camel’s back. On 30 August she ‘resigned’ her portfolios.

This scandal could easily have triggered an early election had she held fast and refused to step down. History might have been different had Key gone to polls three weeks before the Nats were ready, and under  Collins-inspired storm-clouds.

A TVNZ-Colmar Brunton poll, released the day before Collins stood down, gave an unequivocal result to the simple question:  should Collins resign?  61% of respondents said yes; 26%  said no, and 13% had no opinion. (That 26% corresponds roughly to National’s core tribal-electoral support, as demonstrated at the 2002 general election.)

A day later, she obliged.

Five days after her ‘resignation’, a Fairfax media-Ipsos poll reported a massive 3.4% jump for National. No doubt National-aligned pollster, David Farrar, had already known that National would re-bound with Collins gone. His own internal polling would have shown this.

But here comes the ‘kicker’. On 5 September, on the same day as the Fairfax-Ipsos poll was made public,  a NZ Herald-DigiPoll, showed another conclusive result for the National Party. The majority stated categorically that they had had enough of the increasingly troublesome,  ‘accident’-prone, Member for Papakura.

Asked if Key should give Collins any Ministerial role in a third term National government, 51.6% responded with  “give her no ministerial role”. (25.5% responded with  giving her a less senior role than she had; and only 12.6% agreed she “should keep the Justice portfolio or a similarly senior role”.)

Those results clearly illustrate the divisive nature of Judith Collins if she is in a position of authority.

Key would do well to remember these facts, even when/if the Chisholm Inquiry exonerates her.

On the other hand, a revitalised Parliamentary Labour Opposition probably relishes the prospect of a politically “rehabilitated” Collins appointed to a Ministerial role once again.

One can only imagine what new cluster-f**k is awaiting in the wings with this woman.

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References

NZ News: Collins report may clear way for return

NZ Herald:  Rennie made ‘miscalculation’ in allowing Sutton press conference – PM

Dominion Post: No Cabinet return for Judith Collins

TV3 News: ‘Do you know who I am?’ – Aaron Gilmore

NZ Herald: I’m the victim of a smear campaign: Judith Collins resigns

TVNZ: Collins says sorry to TVNZ reporter after allegation

TVNZ: Voters want Judith Collins to stand down, poll reveals

Wikipedia: 2002 General Election

Fairfax media: National soars without Collins – poll

Previous related blogposts

Letter to the Editor: Judith Collins

Judith Collins – Minister of Talking Crap

Judith Collins – Hypocrite of the Week

Are Cameron Slater and Judith Collins bare-faced liars?

Additional related blogpost

Doing ‘the business’ with John Key – Here’s How (Part # Rua)


 

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Collins feeding her trained attack mutt cameron slater

 

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= fs =

 

 

 

 

13 COMMENTS

  1. When is John key going to face retribution, hes far worse than Collins, Dirty Politics tells us that,but he buck passes, someone else takes the blame and get a new cushy job .
    Cameron Slater has got away with everything because its in John Keys interest not to do anything ,if he did Slater is vindictive enough to bring down Key, Slater should be up before the courts and put under oath to tell Keys part in dirty politics ,but of course like Collins the courts will favour Key,corruption everywhere in NZ. If the courts don’t prosecute Collins it will be because she also could bring Key down,and most probably they have an agreement about outcomes.

  2. That that one of most corrupt, inappropriate, arrogant and bullying ministers will not doubt escape justice shows what a joke the National party is.

    However they are not blameless. The Labour and Greens needed to strike together before the election to highlight her behavior. But they missed the ball and did not use any of it into the election. Once she resigned they too, just let it go cos dirty politics was a ‘distraction from the issues’. Other government officials stepped up complaining of tampering into information requests etc but the ‘opposition’ did nothing.

    They could have gone around getting all the complaints and packaged them together, put it on one page and distributed it to the media (MSM journo’s can’t be expected to go to any effort and join any dots any more), put it on their web pages, demand an enquiry before the election, even take legal action etc.

    The opposition needs to do work to highlight corruption not just ask a few questions and expect somehow someone else (apart from Nicky Hager) will actually investigate and distribute it. Of course now NH computers have now gone he too has been rendered powerless in another questionable police search. The poor guy’s only support is the many people who donated to try to get justice. I don’t see other political parties speaking out about his treatment or connecting the dots to other abuse of power behaviors.

    Even the MSM were a bit concerned that CS considered himself a journalist (like them) and was feeding them smears from the government on targets, sponsored by the grocery board, tobacco etc.

    But wait there is more, now we are having for the next 3 years measures for the SIS to survey any citizen they like for 48 hours with no warrant. Are there not already a constant abuse of power from the SIS completely unrelated to terrorism. If Labour votes for this then there is no hope for them. It is like an Animal Farm scenario.

    In my opinion the elections results were not a show of strong support for the government it was a punishment for the poor show of the left to get policies to protect peoples rights in this country and to change the government. In spite of the many attacks of the stupid people of NZ including these blogs, they are not so stupid to notice that if Labour really wanted to change the government why were they running rival candidates in Te Tai Tokerau. Labour showed more interest in settling old score’s, spouting meaningless words in the most part, rather than going for a strategic win. That is what made their own voter’s be forced to punish them to get their ego’s back to size. Likewise the Green’s Why did they not pick up more votes? Since Sue Bradford left their activism level and ability to get bills through has deteriorated.

    It is easy to blame National for everything but voters need more than blame they actually need to see balls and action from the opposition to get this country back into a great democratic place to live.

    I hope rather than accept the return of Judith Collins the ‘opposition’ actually have some plans to highlight why she should not be coming back and to actually do some digging themselves and work together to highlight ‘dirty politics’ rather than expecting someone else to do it for them.

    • David Cunliffe didn’t appear to want to win, he let everything go thinking maybe the people didn’t want dirty politics so he refrained from mentioning it, even following Keys lead in pushing forward
      Kelvin Davis, and locking out internet/ mana the only real hope of getting Key out, sounds like a set up. Labour let us down and National did what they are good at, manipulation as taught by American Crosby Textor, we really are in the grip of America with John Key their puppet,with his snide smirky face , hes laughing at us ,because of his backing,he thinks he is invincible and people voted for him WHY!

  3. It was always a source of wonderment how in overseas dictatorships ,….when that regime was ‘ overthrown ‘,…that the same old tired names cropped up in the ‘new ‘ dictatorship.

    Now we know.

  4. Call me cynical – well, how could you not be with this government? – but I think Collins’ departure had a lot to do with the rumours she was aiming for the position of PM. Only when Kim John Key saw her as a threat to his own job did he do anything… and even then, wasn’t it with an email that had been leaked to him? oh, the irony…

    • @Booker – now the report into her behaviour re former Director of the SFO Adam Feeley, has found no intentional wrongdoing on her part, watch Collins go for Key!

      I’d say it will be subtle moves on Collins’ part, softly, softly, then out of the blue the knives will come out.

      Interesting to note Key has now said it’s likely he will give her the title of Honourable for life! Obviously with her virtual vindication, she will be holding the ace card again, possibly over him!

  5. The Chisholm report states that Collins discussed the subject of Mr Adam Feeley with Cameron Slater … oh come on ….. why else would you discuss the subject of Mr Feeley with a known despicable blogger ……???

  6. The sooner Collins is returned to Cabinet and gets back to doing what she does best, the sooner Labour’s chances of winning the next election will start to sky rocket. She is Labour’s best weapon!

  7. …. So, If the majority of NZērs voted for this Govt and its cronies to be in parliament ….Then you get what your`ve paid for..Crooked Politicians and Dirty Policies…. Amen!!

  8. WHITEWASH!

    Totally 100% predictable, after all Key set the bar so very low for this bullshit inquiry, and the only thing worse was dragging a High Court judge into this filth to give it some sort of credibility.

    Does any minister not make a come back in John Keys bent little world? They are all so entwined in their dodgy ventures aren’t they?

    Still she gives a truly rotten smell to Keys government that it so thoroughly deserves.

  9. She could help Maggie Barry. Be her BFF and guide. Assistant to the Associate outside of Cabinet. Arts, Culture and Woteva.

    They could go on gardening leave together. Bless…

  10. It would be a shame if none of the National party supporters ever read this daily blog site, the MSM are telling things bit by bit about Key but not the real story, and almost always with a forgiving note at end of story.

Comments are closed.