Judith Anne Collins (born 24 February 1959) 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. She was the second female Leader of the National Party, after Jenny Shipley. Collins has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Papakura since 2008 and was MP for Clevedon from 2002 to 2008. She was a government minister in the cabinets of John Key and of Bill English.
Born in Hamilton, Collins studied at Matamata College, the University of Canterbury and University of Auckland. Before entering politics, Collins worked as a commercial lawyer and was President of the Auckland District Law Society and Vice-President of the New Zealand Law Society. She was a solicitor for four different firms from 1981 and 1990, before running her own practice for a decade. She 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 .
Collins was appointed to the Cabinet by Prime Minister John Key when the National Party entered government at the . She was ranked fifth in the Cabinet and the highest-ranked woman. Collins served as Minister of Police and Minister of Corrections from 2008 to 2011 and 2015 to 2016. After the , she was appointed Minister of Justice and Minister for the ACC. In 2014 Collins resigned, after she was told by the Prime Minister that if she did not, he would sack her. This occurred following email leaks alleging she had undermined the head of the Serious Fraud Office whilst she was Police Minister. While she was not cleared of wrongdoing related to that incident, she returned to the Cabinet in 2015. Collins served under Prime Minister Bill English as Minister of Revenue and Minister of Energy and Resources from 2016 to 2017.
After the National Party left government in the , Collins served in several shadow portfolios. She was elected to succeed Todd Muller as National Party Leader by the parliamentary caucus on 14 July 2020, becoming Leader of the Opposition. She led the party to its second-worst defeat in the party's history at the 2020 election, losing 23 seats. 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.
Early life and career
Collins was born in Hamilton. Her parents were dairy farmers Percy and Jessie Collins of Walton in the Waikato and she was the youngest of six children. She attended Walton Primary School and Matamata College. In 1977 and 1978 she studied at the University of Canterbury. In 1979 she switched to the University of Auckland, and obtained first an LLB and then a LLM (Hons) and later a Master of Taxation Studies (MTaxS). In 2020 she graduated with a Graduate Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety from Massey University. She met her husband, Chinese-Samoan David Wong-Tung, at university. He was then a police officer and had migrated from Samoa as a child. They have one son. Collins has described herself as a liberal Anglican.
Collins was a Labour Party supporter from childhood, but by 2002 had been a member of the National Party for three years. She has been a member of Zonta International and of Rotary International.
Professional career
After leaving university, she worked as a lawyer, specialising in employment, property, commercial, and tax law. She worked as a solicitor for four different firms between 1981 and 1990 and then became principal of her own firm, Judith Collins & Associates (1990–2000). In the last two years before the election to Parliament, she worked as special counsel for Minter Ellison Rudd Watts (2000–2002).
She was active in legal associations, and was President of the Auckland District Law Society (1998–1999) and Vice-President of the New Zealand Law Society (1999–2000). She served as chairperson of the Casino Control Authority (1999–2002) and was a director of Housing New Zealand Limited (1999–2001).
Early parliamentary career (2002–2008)
Collins was elected to Parliament in the as the National MP for Clevedon. Although technically a new electorate, Clevedon was largely based on the old electorate, held by National's Warren Kyd.