Claire Trevett: Can Judith Collins disrupt Jacinda Ardern's 'nonsense'?

COMMENT

After Judith Collins was finally, finally elected the leader of her party on a day of shock and ever diminishing options, Collins emerged from that caucus room like Boadicea going to war.

She marched out with her army of MPs marching behind her in great numbers.

They marched along that long corridor, down two flights of stairs, along the green carpet in the Grand Hall and into the Legislative Council Chamber. Left, right, left, but mainly right.

At that stage, it turned into a wedding: the MPs fanned out around her looking for all the world like a family photo at a wedding with Collins and deputy Gerry Brownlee as the bride and groom.

THE WEDDING PHOTO: New National Party leader Judith Collins, party President Peter Goodfellow and deputy leader Gerry Brownlee flanked by the caucus. Photo / Mark Mitchell

There was no way in hell Collins was going to give the cameras capturing these moments any excuse to show she might not have the backing of that caucus.

The willingness of those MPs to go along with it – even Simon Bridges and Paula Bennett kept mischievous expressions off their faces - was perhaps due to the same kind of epiphany a near-death experience gives people.

The realisation hits that dramatic change is needed.

And after the coup and then the resignation of Todd Muller, the National Party – having been a citadel of stability until earlier this year – was having that near-death experience.

Many MPs had said Collins would "never" get enough support in the caucus to get the leadership.

Some of those very same MPs likely found themselves ticking her name in Tuesday's ballot of desperation.

It is safe to say neither those MPs nor Collins would ever have thought Collins would end up being the "safe pair of hands".

Yet that is exactly what she is now, as the party stares down the barrel of an election in 10 weeks and a 20-point gap in the polls.

There have long been questions about whether she was too polarising for the job. Make no mistake, she remains polarising. But that carries benefits as well.

National was starting to lose its core base. If anybody can, Collins can haul them back. More than any other National MP, Collins is also the one who might stop voters looking at NZ First as well.

Her election restored some sense of equilibrium to the political universe.

Once again, the left have somebody to contentedly loathe.

They set about doing just that, chirruping away happily on Twitter and dusting off Collins' old skeletons again. Collins helped fuel them along by declaring she would not be "distracted" by issues such as gender and ethnicity in settling her front bench.

Those on the right are also chipper: they have someone to barrack for in taking on Jacinda Ardern and think Collins is the one who can do it.

Collins fuelled them as well, saying while she respected Ardern, she was " "not going to let Jacinda Ardern get away with any nonsense when it comes to our economy."

The big question remains what voters in the middle will think. Collins' skeletons may now be far enough in the past for many voters to put to one side. She has spent a lot of time on redeeming herself.

Asked how a leadership team of veterans Collins and Brownlee could show a "fresh face" to the nation, Collins said she would slap on more makeup. "Then I'll look fresher."

Illustration / Rod Emmerson

After all, it was fresher faces that got National into the pickle to begin with. If anything was now needed, it was experience.

The overwhelming expression on the MPs' faces as Collins spoke to media was one of relief.

Collins does not need to waste time on the whole "getting to know Judith" thing. People already know her – or at least think they do.

Collins has spent her political career alternating between fostering the "crusher" image and trying to rebut it. She has been described as a chameleon. She is certainly not one-dimensional. Nobody will be bored while she is leader.

She can also be sensible. With 10 weeks to go, she has shown no inclination for wasting time on vengeance with those MPs who had once said "never" to her. She no longer needs to. The Queen has that throne.

She has shown little appetite for taking a scorched earth approach to National's policy offerings. The policies have been three years in the making: it was not an area Bridges had let slide.

There will be shifts of emphasis – the law and order rhetoric will ramp up again, and the farmers will be happy Collins will not be putting up with any of that "nonsense" on the left.

Thus far, the Prime Minister has taken a rather aloof approach to the election, almost to the point of treating it as simply any other day.

Ardern has chosen to minimise the "campaign" elements of it – there will be few new policy announcements and they will not come until late in the campaign.

The day after Collins' election, Ardern said she was not even thinking about the election yet, she would be "governing" up until the end.

Ardern has pointed to Covid-19 as the reason for this. There is some validity to that. No government can take a campaign as usual approach with Covid-19 out there.

But it also risks looking a bit complacent, as if she thinks Labour can get away with being on cruise control. Cruise control may even be enough.

However, if anybody can disrupt cruise control, it is Collins. Collins has had many critics in the past – myself included. But she is now just what National needs: the only one capable of pulling off the Hail Mary pass.

She has something to prove. Few things motivate a politician more than having something to prove.

By and large, leaders can be sorted by the rhetorical weapons they use for political surgery.

Ardern uses a scalpel, a nuanced and tidy nipping and tucking, wielded with a smile.

Bridges used his bare fists, thudding away to some effect until Covid-19 came along, but bruising his own knuckles in the process.

Collins will be oiling up the chainsaw as we speak.