On the Tiles: Press gallery breaks down what happened with National Party implosion

By NZ Herald

NZ Herald·

25 Nov, 2021 11:30 PM2 mins to read

Former National Party leader Judith Collins. Photo / NZ Herald

In a week that was set to be dominated politically by Labour's continued handling of the Covid-19 outbreak, one email from former National Party leader Judith Collins shook up the country's political landscape.

In an emergency episode of On the Tiles, the Herald's politics podcast, senior political journalist Thomas Coughlan is joined by Newstalk ZB's chief political reporter Jason Walls to dissect the implosion of the National Party's leadership.

Collins stunned press gallery journalists and the public on Wednesday night when she released a press release saying Simon Bridges - who was rumoured to be considering a coup against Collins - had been demoted and stripped of his portfolios over historic allegations of harassment and inappropriate comments made to a female colleague.

The move backfired against Collins, with a caucus meeting on Thursday seeing her MPs voted her out as leader - replacing her with Dr Shane Reti as an interim leader before a formal decision is made next week.

While the spill happened in under 24 hours, Coughlan put the origins of this tension months ago when Collins stripped former leader Todd Muller of his portfolios after it was revealed he had leaked information to the media.

"That level of quite high-level discipline for a low-level offence, and the way it was done to humiliate him as well. Todd is quite well-liked in caucus, he is a nice guy... as a person, he is a well-liked guy, and I think Judith burnt a lot of bridges with that."

Walls said some of Collins' behind the scenes moves are the sorts of things that the public wouldn't notice but the MPs themselves would take them to heart.

"Bridges was a bridge too far."

They also discuss the fallout for National Party's board, the allegations made against Bridges, and who the potential leadership candidates are now.