Judith Collins, ranked No 9 in Cabinet, has more portfolios than anyone else.
She didn’t shed a tear when her National colleagues passed a no-confidence vote in her leadership.
She is heading to Europe tomorrow for a Nato defence ministers meeting.
She’s back! But until last week, Cabinet minister Judith Collins hadn’t really shown us what we had been missing.
The former National Party leader has reinvented herself into political relevancy with a mix of someone who embraces tradition and modernity equally in her seven portfolios.
But the sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui in Samoa has provided an unfortunate stage on which she has been able to demonstrate her strengths and direct style with no room for woolliness.
Calling out the “armchair admirals” who had immediately blamed the disaster on the woman in command of the ship, Yvonne Gray, she called them “deeply misogynistic”.
Neither Gray, the new head of the Army, Major General Rose King, nor herself had got their jobs because they were women but on merit.
“Competent women get on with the job and then they get attacked by these armchair admirals who are never going to have to be responsible for anyone else’s life and can barely look after themselves,” she told the Herald.
“When the Navy loses a ship, it’s sort of like losing their mother. It’s that bad for them.
“So to have the commander vilified for being a woman I have to say makes me extremely disappointed.”
She said she did not yet know how the grounding and sinking of the vessel in Samoa happened or why it happened but she does not believe it will damage New Zealand’s relationship with Samoa.
“What I do know is when those bad things happen, it’s how you react, it’s how you respond to it that defines those relationships and the Samoan Government would know that the New Zealand Government is absolutely there for them.”
The Defence Force, Maritime NZ and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were part of an all-of-Government approach to the response.
Collins has more portfolios than any other minister: Attorney-General, Defence, GCSB and SIS, Digitising Government, Science, Innovation and Technology, Space, and the Response to the Royal Commission’s Report into the Terrorist Attack on the Christchurch Mosques.
“To be frank, I did not shed a tear,” she said. “It was a massive relief not to have that burden to carry.”
When Christopher Luxon initially took the helm, she was No 19, just inside the shadow Cabinet, and by the time of the 2023 election, she was ranked No 10 and ready for a new lease on politics in Government.
“I just threw myself into my work,” she said. “One of the big mistakes people have sometimes is when they are knocked down…they feel they have to go and retreat. Don’t do that. Get back out there every time. “
She praised Luxon’s leadership, particularly his experience in managing teams and the Coalition.
“I just find it a joy to go to work every day. I know I’ve had to deal with some pretty difficult situations like we’ve had recently but actually I find my work a joy. I love it so much.”
She had always wanted Defence and asked John Key for it over 10 years ago - although it was given to “another bloke as it always had been,” she said. She wouldn’t say who but under the Key-English Government, it was held by Wayne Mapp, Jonathan Coleman, Gerry Brownlee and Mark Mitchell.
She is the daughter of a World War II veteran, Sapper Percy Collins, who served in Cassino, Italy.
Collins represented the Government at memorial services this year in Flanders Fields, Belgium, and at Cassino.
She explains why she once revealed her admiration for the German General Erwin Rommel who commanded German troops in North Africa in World War II.
“I admired the integrity…He was very careful about making sure the prisoners of war for allies were treated with decency at a time when others were not. That’s good.
“Obviously I don’t agree with the political views but you’ve got to understand people in their time and he was certainly particularly glowing in his comments about the New Zealand soldiers and particularly the Māori Battalion.”
Collins leaves for Brussels tomorrow night for a meeting of defence ministers of Nato members and partners where the security of Europe, the Middle East and Asia is likely to feature (Associate Defence Minister Chris Penk will oversee the Manawanui clean-up).
New Zealand has been a partner of Nato since it led the international force in Afghanistan during the Helen Clark-led Labour Government and is now part of a grouping of Nato partner countries in the region called the Indo-Pacific 4 (IP4), with Australia, Japan and South Korea.
The IP4 began as an informal grouping in 2016 but is increasingly being drawn into a more regularised involvement of foreign ministers, then in leadership summits and for the first time with defence ministers.
Along with Foreign Minister Winston Peters, Collins is part of a Government that is clearly aligning New Zealand more closely to the United States in the face of its growing strategic rivalry with China in the Asia Pacific region.
“It would be very foolish to forget that the US, UK, Australia, Canada and us have been part of the Five Eyes alliance for over 70 years. It would be very foolish to forget that.”
Several times during the interview she mentioned the way Singapore manages its relationship with both the United States and China and suggested New Zealand was like it.
“They are very, very intelligent in the way they operate,” she said.
It had strong defence relationships with the US and other countries like the UK and New Zealand and Australia but its major commercial partner was China.
“We don’t want there to be this interaction, this play, that is going on at the moment.”
“That is the first time in 44 years that has happened. People should not underestimate how hurt many of the Pacific nations were by that. People were just not expecting it.
“It is a difficult world and we have to be realistic about where we are, what our options are in life and we need to get on and make sure we promote defence as well as our economic security,” she said.
“Our economic security is not there if we don’t have actual security.”
Shortly before the ICBM was fired, the New Zealand Navy joined Australia and Japan in sailing through the Taiwan Straits, something it has not done since 2017.
Asked what mandate the cabinet had to take New Zealand into Aukus pillar two (a proposed grouping to share military technology) she said: “I’m not saying cabinet is doing it. The mandate is we are the Government. We have to make decisions.”
She dismissed criticism that aligning New Zealand with Aukus in any form would diminish New Zealand’s independence. New Zealand still had an independent foreign policy, as did every other country.
“If independent means you are all by yourself and nobody is going to be there to help you, no thanks - we’d rather have our friends.
“It’s a very difficult time when Sweden given up 300 years of neutrality to go and join Nato,” she said.
“I don’t think people necessarily want to be isolationist anymore because frankly, as was proven by the intern-continental ballistic missile, we are well within its sights.”
Unlike many countries, New Zealand was given notice by China of its intention to fire the missile.
She believes that was because New Zealand had a good relationship with China.
“I think we should not underestimate China has been a very good friend to us and is a good friend.
“But let’s be aware, we also need to do our part in the world as well and the Chinese Government is not in charge of our foreign policy and nor is the US Government.
“We are the ones who have to deal with it. That is our role. We are the duly elected Government and we do, I think, a really good job of it working across the whole area.”
Collins is New Zealand’s first Minister for Space, and the synergies with Defence are strong. Primarily due to Peter Beck’s Rocket Lab, New Zealand is No. 3 in the world for successful vertical launches.
“Every payload gets signed off by me…I don’t mind doing it because that way I know with certainty what’s going up there and I also know everything has been checked by our intelligence agencies.”
Last year New Zealand was fourth behind the US, China and Russia but Collins said: “As you know, Russia has been otherwise occupied illegally invading its neighbour.”
Her responsibilities extend to emerging aviation technologies – which includes drones and satellites - and by the end of next year, the aim is to have in place a light-touch regulatory regime to allow testing of advanced aviation vehicles and technology.
The new rules would fall under the responsibility of the Civil Aviation Authority.
New Zealand already depends on drones and satellites, with the world’s fourth-largest maritime zone and a population less than the size of Melbourne.
“A lot of the intelligence on who is doing what in our maritime zone is through our space sector, through the satellite work, through our defence alliances, particularly around Five Eyes,” she said.
“Things just work better when our space is working better so our GPS, our telecommunications are very dependent on space and people tend to forget that.
“Our GPS doesn’t just happen to work one day because we bought a set. It’s because of the connectivity with space.
“We also need to understand we are vulnerable because of that, too.”
US officials reported in February this year that Russia was developing a space-based anti-satellite missile armed with a nuclear warhead – although Vladimir Putin denied it.
Collins is responsible for more cutting-edge developments – Artificial Intelligence (AI) as Minister for Digitising Government.
She has talked previously about the benefits of AI in educational tutoring, in health as a diagnostic aid and in the targeted assistance that underpins social investment.
And she is encouraging its use in Government.
“When we came into Government, I asked MBIE, the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment, was it true they did not allow staff to use AI. Apparently, the answer was yes…I’m very pleased to see that MBIE is getting with the programme and doing its bit in working with the Department of Internal Affairs, and actually just making a far more customer focus on the work of Government.”
She was keen to improve the productivity of the public sector without spending millions to get it.
She had also set up a cross-party group at Parliament.
But she said she was not planning to establish a regulator for AI.
She knew the European Union supported regulation. “But they are 450 million people. We are five million people….At some stage there might be a regulator but right at the moment we don’t have enough to regulate, to be frank.”
One area in which New Zealand is playing catch up is in the field of genetic engineering.
Collins is overseeing a modernised regulatory regime based on the Australian model as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology
Gene technology was crucial for productivity in the primary sector, climate change responses and development in health.
“We’ve had 30 years of being shut down…our labs have had to go and spend another seven years trying to get the same result when they could have been producing new varieties of kiwifruit or anything else.
“We have enormous possibilities in this country and we have just got to get on with it.
“There will be people who say it is over-regulated. Others will say it is under-regulated. But I think we will be in a happy medium of a good sensible dedicated regulator, which will be the Environmental Protection Agency.
Collins’ most challenging portfolio is that of Attorney-General - the other job she has always wanted - in which she is the protector-in-chief of the relationship between the judiciary and Parliament and the executive.
It is a role in which she has often appeared to be the referee between outspoken MPs and ministers who have criticised what they believe is overreach or activism by the courts.
“Well it’s better than being the boxer in the ring,” Collins said.
She said she was first and foremost a lawyer and had held her practising certificate since 1981.
“I am very protective of the role of the judiciary. That relationship is very important,” she said.
“Part of our democratic values is that we have a politically neutral judiciary that is free to do its job with the laws that Parliament passes.
“It is very clear to me that policy is made by Government, laws are made by Parliament and the judiciary’s role is interpreting those.”
She said she would not comment on specific cases but most weeks she spoke with the Chief Justice, Dame Helen Winkelmann, and with the Solicitor-General, Una Jagose, and they would discuss what was policy and what was not policy, and the interpretation of the courts.
Asked if the principle of parliamentary sovereignty had been eroded over the past couple of decades, she said: “Parliamentary sovereignty is sovereign from my point of view.”
“I think though, that if Parliament passes laws where there is woolly language and lack of clarity, and comes up with some idea and they don’t want to get down to the nub of what they want to do and let the courts interpret it, it is actually on Parliament that they’ve let that happen.
“My advice to cabinet and colleagues in Parliament is if you want your laws interpreted in the way that you want them interpreted, that you mean, then you’d better make them clear.
“And do not start using woolly language that you then do not like if a judge sees that must mean something else.
“We just have to be really clear.”
Got it.
Audrey Young is the New Zealand Herald’s senior political correspondent. She was named Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards in 2023, 2020 and 2018.
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