Judith Collins resigns

Written By: - Date published: 1:48 pm, August 30th, 2014 - 13 comments
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Oravida and the mysterious Chinese border control official, the Simon Pleasants leak, Bronwyn Pullar’s Privacy Commission complaint, plotting to roll John Key after the election – the allegations just kept coming.

Now there’s the allegation that she conspired with Cameron Slater and others to discredit former Serious Fraud Office director Adam Feeley. This while she was Minister of Justice – the Minister in charge of the SFO.

She’s resigned as a Minister, and John Key has accepted that resignation. As with the Oravida saga, she believes that she’s the victim here (the vast left wing smear campaign continues…), and she’s resigning to focus on clearing her name. She’ll be staying on as MP for Papakura though, although John Key, in his press conference at the Beehive, made it clear that she could not expect a Ministerial role if National is re-elected (not at least until her name is cleared).

A 2011 email from Slater to Carrick Graham and others was sent anonymously to John Key’s office last night.

The Cameron Slater email that has resulted in Judith Collins' resignation

The Cameron Slater email that has resulted in Judith Collins’ resignation

The email includes the following paragraphs (some grammar/spelling fixed):

I am maintaining daily communications with Jared Savage at the Herald and he is passing information directly to me that the Herald can’t run and so are feeding me to run on the blog. In the meantime I also have additional information flowing in via my tipline. That information will be drip fed into the media or via my blog.

and

I also spoke at length with the Minister responsible today (Judith Collins). She is gunning for Feeley. Any information that we can provide her on his background is appreciated. I have outlined for her a coming blog post about the massive staff turnover and she has added that to the review of the State Services Commissioner. She is using his review of these events to go on a trawl looking for anything else. It is my opinion that Feeley’s position is untenable.

Given the allegations in Dirty Politics that Judith Collins was responsible for so many of the leaks that poured through the Whaleoil “tipline”, it’s hard to escape the possibility that Collins was both sending and receiving information regarding Feeley. Even if nothing flowed from her to Slater on the subject, the fact that she was at least briefed by Slater on a smear campaign against the head of the SFO is more than grounds for her resignation. That would be unacceptable from any Government Minister, let alone the Minister in charge of the SFO.

Of interest is where the email came from. It wasn’t released by Whaledump, and one would assume that if Nicky Hager had had it in his possession, it would have featured prominently in Dirty Politics. Was Slater hacked twice, or has someone in Slater’s inner circle turned against him?

Regardless of the provinence of the email, Judith Collins’ career is now officially in tatters. Since the Oravida story broke, the likelihood of her ever becoming leader of the National Party and Prime Minister was ever-decreasing. Now, the odds have to be as close to zero as they come.

13 comments on “Judith Collins resigns ”

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  1. Olwyn 1
    30 August 2014 at 1:58 pm

    You have a typo – you mean “staying on as MP for Papakura,” not Pakuranga.

    • jononatusch 1.1
      30 August 2014 at 2:06 pm

      Cheers Olwyn – fixed.

      Pakuranga has enough trouble with its elected representation without adding Ms Collins to the mix!

      • Herodotus 1.1.1
        30 August 2014 at 4:09 pm

        For some of us we have had the privilege to have as our electorate mp:
        Ross Robertson , Williamson, Collins, pansy Wong and Jamie lee Ross . And people wonder why a no vote is an option to be considered !!!

        • irascible 1.1.1.1
          31 August 2014 at 6:49 pm

          Well, this time vote for Tofik Mamedov if you live in Botany. He will be a solid worker for the electorate.

  2. Stuart Munro 2
    30 August 2014 at 3:34 pm

    Alas poor Judith she’s out of power
    the milk that she was pure as was sour.

  3. phillip ure 3
    30 August 2014 at 3:56 pm

    what is disturbing in that email are the named mainstram-media/p.r-trouts working so closely with/for slater..

    ..and how about that ‘herald’..?..eh..?

    ..whoar..!..

    • Paul 3.1
      30 August 2014 at 4:05 pm

      Yes the Heralds very dirty in all this.
      Reckon quite a lot of the media is compromised by Slater, hence their fear of him.

    • disturbed 3.2
      30 August 2014 at 8:05 pm

      How has the Key Government going to handle the NZ Herald affair?

      This is how the British Government handled their Newspaper scandal.

      The prime minister has announced two inquiries and said the Press Complaints Commission should be scrapped.

      Lord Justice Leveson is conducting a two-part inquiry, initially looking at “the culture, practices and ethics” of the UK press and its relationships with police and politicians. It will later examine the extent of unlawful conduct within newspaper groups and the police’s original phone-hacking investigation.

      Andy Coulson Andy Coulson blamed coverage of the phone-hacking story for his resignation
      Former Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Elizabeth Filkin has already examined the relationship between the media and Metropolitan Police.

      She concluded that the “close relationship” between parts of Scotland Yard and the media had caused “serious harm”. She said there were “some very serious issues” relating to contact between journalists and police which had “eroded trust from the public”. Among her recommendations, she told officers to “watch out” for “late-night carousing” with journalists, and flirting.

      Prime Minister David Cameron has faced questions over his judgement, given that he employed Mr Coulson.

  4. Herodotus 4
    30 August 2014 at 4:03 pm

    Should labour achieve some control on the government IMO a FULL investigation has tone conducted with the widest power possible to protect what ruminant of credibility nz has regarding being a corruption free zone, and should anything be found, the full weight of the justice system to be seen , could be 3 strikes and throw away the key in one act. Note the punns !! 😉

  5. ghostwhowalksnz 5
    30 August 2014 at 4:19 pm

    The source is supposed to Redshark who had feed to to the Sunday Star Times for a scoop on Sunday.

    I notice the email is addressed to Mark ( Hotckin) , unkown, Carrick ( Graham).

    It looks like Hotchkin was using Grahams public relations firm to get back at the SFO and Feeley.

    Would be interesting why unknown ( whiteout on email) has been so privileged to be kept out of the public eye.

  6. anker 6
    30 August 2014 at 4:48 pm

    Yes I am joining lots of dots about the Heralds role with Whale Oil.

    Remember Audrey Young’s article on Cunliffe setting up a meeting with one of the South Island candidates and a sex offender with name suppression. This was to make Cunliffe look bad. I seem to remember Whale Oil was running a lot on the sex offender with name suppression. Looks suspicious to me.

  7. Sable 7
    30 August 2014 at 5:00 pm

    Nice article but I think an image of a toilet being flushed would have been more appropriate than an exit sign….

  8. Colonial Viper 8
    30 August 2014 at 7:23 pm

    So, the NZ Herald was feeding dross and filth that they couldn’t print themselves to Whaleoil, to release (effectively) on their behalf.

    All the news that’s fit to print, eh. Explains a lot. Oh yeah, heads need to roll at that paper.