Judith Collins

Collins folds

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 5:41 pm, November 14th, 2012 - 18 comments

And so Collins’ “defamation” case against Mallard and Little ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.

Oops – doubled up posting with Eddie – read both posts!

Collins’ faction tries to magic up an ally

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:32 am, October 2nd, 2012 - 35 comments

It’s been interesting to watch the Collins Faction of National talk down the Conservative Party all year. It’s not hard to see why – they occupy space/take votes that a Collins-led National would want for itself. What the Collins Faction would like is a decent liberal-right party. That would allow National to swing conservative and give up liberal votes to an ally, rather than to the Left.

Collins crushed by booze lobby

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 10:14 pm, August 24th, 2012 - 40 comments

What a craven cave-in. Lobbied by big booze, Collins has given in. Alco-pops will be left to the industry to regulate. It’s not a good look. Key wants to give the pokie industry free rein, and Collins wants to give the booze industry free rein, which means more families suffer, and more hospitals are overrun. As leaders they both get a fail.

They eat their own

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:37 am, August 3rd, 2012 - 27 comments

Anyone else taking a perverse pleasure in the Pullar-Collins-Boag-Judge affair? They’re all Tory villains. And they’re eating each other alive. Judge was handpicked to privatise ACC. Now, Collins is trying to stick the Boag email leak to him, Did he do it? Who knows. The other most likely option is Collins. So implicating Judge serves Collins’ purpose.

Trash talk

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 4:32 pm, June 21st, 2012 - 34 comments

So the first car has been crushed. While ministerial grandstanding abounds, a criminologist describes it as “vindictive, malicious, petty and an undignified way of dealing with the problem”.

Collins rates her reputation worthless

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:27 am, May 31st, 2012 - 25 comments

Judith Collins has tried to go for a lower bar in her defamation suit against Andrew Little and Trevor Mallard to get it over with quicker. But asking for a declaration, rather than damages, doesn’t reduce the legal test. There’s just no way Collins is going to be able to show she was legally defamed, let alone rebuff the defences Little and Mallard have.

Still no law suit from Collins

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 2:06 pm, May 7th, 2012 - 16 comments

For all her bluster, Judith Collins still hasn’t sued Trevor Mallard and Andrew Little for supposedly defaming her by saying she was behind the leak of the Boag email identifying Bronwyn Pullar as the leaker of 6,500 ACC clients’ details. I’m not sure how you can argue its defamatory for a minister to be accused of leaking private information when Paula Bennett did it.

Banks has got to go

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 6:52 am, April 29th, 2012 - 182 comments

Key should go because of his dirty deal with SkyCity. Joyce too. Collins should go over the ACC leaks. Brownlee for sheer incompetence. English for shit-eating grin every time he fails to meet his own growth forecasts and announces more cuts. Add Banks to the list. His position in now untenable. The accusations are serious and credible. His excuses and memory lapses implausible. He must at least be stood down.

ImperatorFish: This Week’s Political Gallery

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 2:06 pm, April 12th, 2012 - 26 comments

Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here.

Nat Civil War: The perils of monolithism

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 7:15 am, April 10th, 2012 - 63 comments

Despite losing nearly 1 in 4 of its supporters, 300,000 voters, in a little over 6 months according to the Roy Morgans, National’s 44% still looks superficially impressive. Until you realise they need to be able to form a  majority more or less alone. The Right’s monolithism doesn’t just place extraordinary demands on National’s leader, it’s the root of the current civil war.

Nat Civil War: Crushed’s last day

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:44 am, April 4th, 2012 - 116 comments

Key says Defamation Act requires a plaintiff to sue within five working days. That makes today Crushed Collins’ last day to sue. What will she do? Drop it and look like a blustering fool unfit to be Justice Minister let alone PM or pursue it, open up all her secrets during discovery, lose, and pay costs? Oh yes, Key suckerpunched her good.

Nat Civil War: Suckerpunch

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:36 am, April 3rd, 2012 - 51 comments

John Key just taught Judith Collins not to mess with the Boag faction. The Cabinet Manual required her to consult with him before announcing the defamation suits. He expressed support. Said Cabinet would decide on the funding. Then, at the last minute, word came Cabinet wouldn’t back her. Humiliatingly, she was forced to withdraw her bid but she can’t drop the suits.

Resignation-watch: Suit cash a confidence vote on Collins

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:16 am, April 2nd, 2012 - 61 comments

Cabinet today will decide whether the Crown will pick up the tab for Judith Collins’ defamation suits. The suit against RNZ, whose offence was to do live interviews, is particularly egregious and calculated to chill media comment. It will be unprecedented for the public to pay for a minister to take defamation suits. But we will. Anything less will be a vote of no confidence in Collins by her colleagues.

We need “operation 9” to suppress the bookies

Written By: lprent - Date published: 12:37 pm, March 30th, 2012 - 22 comments

Evidently the people at iPredict don’t like being called “bookies” or being described as “opening a contract” on someone. We are now being targeted by this shadowy organisation.

Perhaps it is time that the police exerted themselves as the entertainment for the media and started operation 9 against this subversive organisation

Collins’ dilemma & lameduck Key

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:06 am, March 30th, 2012 - 36 comments

Judith Collins’ behaviour might strike some as strangely aggressive. Some might even suppose she wouldn’t behave like this unless she was in the right. But let’s put ourselves in her shoes. She wants to be leader. She is now embroiled in a scandal that could end her career. If she could put an end to it without resigning, she would nip it in the bud. Clearly, she can’t.