Judith Anne Collins was born on 24 February 1959 and is a New Zealand politician who served as the Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the New Zealand National Party from 14 July 2020 to 25 November 2021.
79 Facts About Judith Collins
2.
Judith Collins was the second female Leader of the National Party, after Jenny Shipley.
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Judith Collins was a government minister in the cabinets of John Key and of Bill English.
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Judith Collins was a solicitor for four different firms from 1981 and 1990, before running her own practice for a decade.
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Judith Collins was a director of Housing New Zealand from 1999 to 2001 and worked as special counsel for Minter Ellison Rudd Watts from 2000 to 2002 before she entered the New Zealand Parliament at the 2002 election.
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Judith Collins was appointed to the Cabinet by Prime Minister John Key when the National Party entered government at the 2008 election.
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Judith Collins was ranked fifth in the Cabinet and the highest-ranked woman.
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Judith Collins served as Minister of Police and Minister of Corrections from 2008 to 2011 and 2015 to 2016.
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Judith Collins served under Prime Minister Bill English as Minister of Revenue and Minister of Energy and Resources from 2016 to 2017.
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Judith Collins was elected to succeed Todd Muller as National Party Leader by the parliamentary caucus on 14 July 2020, becoming Leader of the Opposition.
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Judith Collins led the party to its second-worst defeat in the party's history at the 2020 election, losing 23 seats.
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Judith Collins was removed as leader of the National Party by its caucus on 25 November 2021, the day after she suddenly demoted Simon Bridges, a political rival, for allegations of making a since-resolved inappropriate comment in 2017.
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Judith Collins's parents were dairy farmers Percy and Jessie Collins of Walton in the Waikato and she was the youngest of six children.
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Judith Collins met her husband, Chinese-Samoan David Wong-Tung, at university.
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Judith Collins was then a police officer and had migrated from Samoa as a child.
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Judith Collins was a Labour Party supporter from childhood, but by 2002 had been a member of the National Party for three years.
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Judith Collins has been a member of Zonta International and of Rotary International.
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Judith Collins was active in legal associations, and was President of the Auckland District Law Society and Vice-President of the New Zealand Law Society.
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Judith Collins served as chairperson of the Casino Control Authority and was a director of Housing New Zealand Limited.
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Judith Collins was elected to Parliament in the 2002 election as the National MP for Clevedon.
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In Parliament, Judith Collins became National's Associate Spokesperson on Health and Spokesperson on Internal Affairs.
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Judith Collins was generally regarded as having performed well and when Katherine Rich refused to give full support to the controversial Orewa Speech by then-party leader Don Brash, Rich was demoted in February 2005 and Collins became National's spokesperson on Social Welfare instead.
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Judith Collins then served as spokesperson on Family and spokesperson on Pacific Island Affairs.
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In 2003, while in opposition, Judith Collins campaigned for an inquiry to find out whether New Zealand troops were exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War and if so any effect this subsequently had.
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In 2004 Judith Collins was awarded the Ex-Vietnam Services Association Pin for campaigning for the inquiry.
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Judith Collins originally announced her intention to seek the National Party nomination for Howick, which comprises the urban part of her former Clevedon electorate.
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Judith Collins then sought and won the nomination for Papakura and allowed her colleague National Party MP Pansy Wong to seek nomination for Botany.
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Judith Collins won Papakura with a majority of more than 10,000 votes.
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The National Party formed a government after the 2008 election, and Judith Collins entered Cabinet with the portfolios of Police, Corrections and Veterans' Affairs.
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In 2009, Judith Collins questioned the leadership of, and later refused to express confidence in, Department of Corrections chief executive Barry Matthews, after a spate of bad publicity.
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Judith Collins increased the availability of work programmes in prison, and increased funding to widen the availability of alcohol and drug treatment programmes.
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Judith Collins oversaw completion of a new prison in Mount Eden, Auckland, and instigated the private management contract for the new prison to British company Serco, on the recommendation of the Department of Corrections.
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In June 2010, Judith Collins announced that from 1 July 2011 tobacco smoking and possessing lighters in prison would be banned, to reduce the health risk that smoking and fire presented to prison guards and prisoners.
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Judith Collins has supported increased access to firearms for frontline officers, by equipping all front-line police vehicles with lock boxes for firearms, but does not support the full-time general arming of police officers.
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Judith Collins described herself as the minister "who brought back deterrence".
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In 2012, Judith Collins moderated the cuts-back to legal aid begun by her predecessor, Simon Power.
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Judith Collins reduced the charges for family and civil cases, delayed the period before interest is charged on outstanding legal aid debt and dropped a proposal to make it harder to get legal aid for less serious crimes such as theft, assault or careless driving.
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Judith Collins did however retain fixed fees for criminal work and the rotation of the legal aid to lawyers in all but the most serious cases, which attracted criticism from some lawyers.
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In December 2012, Judith Collins revealed she had concerns about the robustness of a report authored by retired Canadian Supreme Court judge Ian Binnie, which recommended that David Bain should be paid compensation for the 13 years he spent in prison before being acquitted at retrial in 2009.
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Judith Collins had provided a copy of the report to the police and the Solicitor-General and ordered a peer review by former New Zealand High Court judge Robert Fisher, sending a "34-point list of issues attacking the case" along with her letter of instruction.
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Judith Collins did not provide a copy of Binnie's report to Bain's legal team.
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The claim alleged Judith Collins breached natural justice and the Bill of Rights Act in her treatment of him and that she "acted in bad faith, abused her power, and acted in a biased, unreasonable and predetermined manner".
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In May 2012, Judith Collins sued Labour MPs Trevor Mallard and Andrew Little for defamation over comments they made on Radio New Zealand linking her to the leak of an e-mail from Michelle Boag about Pullar's case.
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Judith Collins did not provide his name, which House speaker David Carter described as "very unsatisfactory".
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Prime Minister John Key stated publicly that Judith Collins was on her final warning over this incident.
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Judith Collins believed Pleasants had leaked information about Deputy Prime Minister Bill English misusing his housing allowance.
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Key said Judith Collins had been 'unwise' and placed on her second final warning.
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On 30 August 2014 Judith Collins resigned her Cabinet positions following the leak of another e-mail written by Slater in 2011, which suggested she had attempted to undermine another public servant, Adam Feeley.
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Feeley was Director of the Serious Fraud Office and Judith Collins was the Minister responsible for the SFO at the time.
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Judith Collins says she resigned because she believed the attacks on her had become a distraction for the National Party leading up to the election.
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Judith Collins called for an inquiry so she could clear her name.
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Judith Collins expressed surprise about having found out about the decision through the media, and Key admitted that his decision should have been explained to Judith Collins.
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Judith Collins was cleared of involvement in the Adam Feeley smear.
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Judith Collins was sworn in again on 14 December 2015.
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Judith Collins dropped in cabinet rank but was made Minister of Revenue, Minister of Energy and Resources, and Minister for Ethnic Communities.
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Judith Collins cited the need for "strong and decisive leadership".
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Judith Collins was endorsed by former National leader Don Brash, and political commentators Duncan Garner, Mike Hosking, Cameron Slater, and Chris Trotter.
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On 14 July 2020, Judith Collins was elected as leader of the National Party following a leadership election held following the abrupt resignation of Todd Muller earlier that day.
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Judith Collins became the second female leader of the National Party.
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Judith Collins faced criticism during her campaign for being out of touch with common New Zealanders after she severely underestimated the price of a block of cheese after being asked how much it cost during an interview.
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Judith Collins led the party to the 2020 election as significant underdogs, with opinion polls suggesting historically large swings to the Labour Party, reflecting its well-received response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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In early February 2021, Judith Collins confirmed that the National Party would be standing candidates in the Maori electorates, reversing the party's policy of not contesting those seats.
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In early September 2021, Judith Collins drew controversy when she described immunologist and science communicator Siouxsie Wiles as a "big, fat hypocrite" during a virtual conversation with a Pasifika group aligned with the party.
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Judith Collins's remarks came after right-wing blogger Cameron Slater posted a video of Wiles socialising with a friend at an Auckland beach during an Alert Level 4 lockdown in the Auckland Region in response to the August 2021 Delta variant community outbreak.
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Judith Collins was removed as leader of the National Party on 25 November 2021 following a caucus vote of no confidence, which took place the day after she sacked rival Simon Bridges over a crude comment he made to fellow MP Jacqui Dean five years prior.
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On 19 January 2023, Judith Collins was promoted from 19th to 10th place on Luxon's shadow cabinet.
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Judith Collins assumed the new roles of "Foreign Direct Investment" and "Digitising Government" spokesperson.
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Judith Collins is seen to represent the right wing of her party, and in her previous roles as Minister of Police and Minister of Corrections, she has promoted law and order policies.
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In 2003, Judith Collins voted against the Death with Dignity Bill, which aimed to legalise euthanasia in New Zealand, but in 2020 voted in support of the End of Life Choice Bill to legalise assisted dying.
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In 2013 Judith Collins voted for the Marriage Amendment Bill, a bill allowing same-sex couples to marry in New Zealand.
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In 2005, Judith Collins voted for the Sale of Liquor Act, a bill aimed at raising the drinking age to 20 years.
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In 2009, Judith Collins voted against the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill, a bill aimed at amending the Misuse of Drugs Act to allow the use of cannabis for medical purposes.
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In 2020, Judith Collins voted no on the 2020 New Zealand cannabis referendum.
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In 2011, Judith Collins pledged to support abortion-law changes which would make it illegal to perform an abortion on someone under the age of 16 without parental notification.
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Judith Collins had proposed adding this to the Care of Children Act in 2004.
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In June 2021, Judith Collins defended the advocacy group Speak Up For Women, a group opposed to gender self-identification which had been prevented from hosting a meeting at a Christchurch City Library venue on the grounds of alleged transphobia.
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Judith Collins is a in New Zealand politics; while she has been praised for bringing her formidably irreverent and larger than life image to the core of the National Party, she has been just as much critiqued for it as well.
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Judith Collins has been nicknamed "Crusher Collins", which stems from her policy as Minister of Police to crush the cars of speeding drivers.
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Judith Collins has won a mixture of light-hearted admiration and disapproval for her "tough image" and tongue-in-cheek hubris, to the extent that she was indirectly referred to by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as a "Karen" in 2021.