Collins & Key go head to head over Henry Inquiry

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, August 22nd, 2013 - 22 comments
Categories: john key, Judith Collins - Tags:

Judith Collins is making a play for support among her fellow National ministers and trying to turn them against Key following Key’s contemptuous attitude to their privacy in the Henry Inquiry. At the Privileges Committee hearing into the Henry Inquiry yesterday, Collins and sidekick Anne Tolley asked why Henry thought he could look at their emails without their permission. Why indeed.

The answer is that Wayne Eagleson, Key’s chief of staff of whom Key says ‘if someone talks to him, they talk to me’, told Henry on several occasions that he had the authority to authorise and was authorising Henry to examine National Ministers’ emails.

Here’s the Herald’s account:

Questioning Mr Henry, Ms Collins indicated she was surprised to learn that ministers’ metadata was obtained by the inquiry without her direct approval…

…Under the inquiry’s terms of reference which were approved by Mr Key, the inquiry sought ministers’ email and phone logs which were held by the Parliamentary Service. After some initial resistance those records were provided, following the intervention of Mr Key’s chief of staff Wayne Eagleson.

After the hearings yesterday, Key hit back at Collins:

Mr Key says anyone who objected to the inquiry’s “basic” intrusion “wouldn’t make it as a minister”.

He even lashed out at Collins in Question Time:

Grant Robertson : Does he agree with Judith Collins’ statement today that it was “chilling” to discover that the Henry inquiry had treated the privacy of Ministers’ metadata information in a “contemptuous way”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY : I would not want to comment on a full quote that I have not seen, but what I can say is that as Prime Minister I put out the terms of reference, and if any Minister did not like them, they were happy to complain about it.

Oh, yes, make no mistake. Collins is using this opportunity to bring ministers on to her side and distance them from Key, whose increasing arrogance is not limited to his external enemies but also extends to anyone within his camp who dares to question him.

22 comments on “Collins & Key go head to head over Henry Inquiry ”

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  1. Pete 1
    22 August 2013 at 11:42 am

    Is the Nat’s internal polling really that bad that it’s threatening open warfare amongst the caucus?

    • Colonial Viper 1.1
      22 August 2013 at 3:41 pm

      If key (ahem) supporters have gone cold on Key, that may actually be a bigger problem for the Nats.

      • geoff 1.1.1
        22 August 2013 at 9:15 pm

        This.
        There must be plenty of National supporter (inside and outside the party) who won’t be happy that Key has, not only, arrogantly pushed an unpopular bill but also a bill that is anti-civil liberties as well.

  2. fambo 2
    22 August 2013 at 11:58 am

    It’s like a Frankenstein Versus Dracula Hammer Horror film

  3. Tracey 3
    22 August 2013 at 12:00 pm

    How can she achieve that when she voted for the GCSB or is it the massive self-interest of wanting THEIR privacy kept private but ours at the discretion of a former currency trader?

    Here’s a look at how the GCSB will collect your personal data:
    •Step 1: GCSB goes to Gmail, guesses “puppy64” as the password for all usernames, and successfully gains access to over 3 million email accounts
    •Step 2: Hits Ctrl+F, types “illegal activity”
    •Step 3: For anyone who doesn’t have a computer, GCSB agents bring one right over to your home for you to use
    •Step 4: Automated bots install a tracking program on your internet browser, which logs your incredibly pathetic cycle of only ever visiting the same five sad little websites
    •Step 5: Randomly texts “what’s up?” to citizens and keeps detailed records of everyone’s responses
    •Step 6: 800 hundred GCSB workers silently tell themselves what they’re doing is okay
    •Step 7: You know how your password turns into dots after you type it? Well, the GCSB figured out how to read dots
    •Step 8: GCSB agent comes to your house, takes you away, and all your technology, doesn’t tell your family, and wont give you access to a lawyer, and beats the piss out of you until you give him the cheats for America’s Army
    •Step 9: NZ saved

    http://www.theonion.com/articles/how-the-nsa-collects-your-data,33362/?ref=auto

  4. Winston Smith 4
    22 August 2013 at 12:29 pm

    Man its sad what a govt will do to stop its slide while its oppositions popularity grows…no wait thats not right

    Yeah good try but a bit amateurish

  5. Psycho Milt 5
    22 August 2013 at 12:36 pm

    Kind of funny watching Judith Collins complaining about servants of government looking through her email metadata without her permission, in the knowledge that she’s then going to vote Aye to the GCSB bill. It’s only bad when the snoopers are looking at her email – yours is fair game.

  6. mickysavage 6
    22 August 2013 at 12:37 pm

    I thought it rather odd that Collins and Tolley should express concern for their rights of privacy on the same day that they should be voting for the erosion of our rights of privacy.

    What is that word starting with “H”?

    EDIT: Psycho bet me to it …

  7. Pascal's bookie 7
    22 August 2013 at 12:42 pm

    To be fair though, I bet Collins did genuinely feel a chill when she found out the PM thought it was aok to have people snooping around ministerial email systems investigating leaks, checking her connections, and those of her office.

  8. Sable 8
    22 August 2013 at 2:45 pm

    Sounds like Caesar might have found his Brutus with beady eyes making her first play to knock money bags off his perch…

  9. Adrian 9
    22 August 2013 at 3:33 pm

    Watch this space. Collins knows something and my bet is Key is fucked!

  10. Jenny 10
    23 August 2013 at 6:00 am

    Collins missed her chance. She had the chance to make a name for herself by standing up against the GCSB bill. But she showed she didn’t have the necessary courage of her convictions. It is too late after the event. She had her chance. She could have been great. She shrunk from it. History doesn’t like a shirker.

  11. Martin 11
    25 August 2013 at 12:21 pm

    it is interesting that John Key, Peter Dunne and that Act spin doctor Matthew Hooton have all objected to having their privacy breached yet all have happily supported above being able to be used on us.
    fuck ‘m all.