Judith 'crusher' Collins opens up about nickname while speaking to the media. Video / HBT
National leader Judith Collins has opened up about her controversial nickname "Crusher" after it was coined more than a decade ago.
Talking to media at their methamphetamine policy launch in Hawke's Bay, Collins revealed she initially thought the term was "dehumanising" and felt it had some rather negative underlying meaning.
But she has since warmed to the name and sees the funny side of the term.
"It's not something I've never used myself. It's funny. I've often thought it was used as a way of dehumanising but I guess after many years of it I've learnt not to worry about things I can't control," she told reporters.
"Sometimes people now say it with affection. If it's said with affection, then okay, just don't expect me to use it.
Collins earned the nickname in 2009 when she developed a reputation for talking tough.
She was quickly nicknamed Crusher Collins when she proposed legislation to "crush" the cars of persistent boy racers.
She went as far to describe herself as the minister "who brought back deterrence".
When asked if she found the name misogynist, Collins told media politics "isn't for the faint-hearted" and is happy to be talked about.
"There may be [misogyny in nicknames]. People like Rob Muldoon was called Piggy Muldoon. I don't think that was misogyny, I just think people chose to use that name.
"If you go into politics it's not for the faint-hearted. You get used to this. I've been called everything.
"It's like right, whatever, as long as they're calling you."
Despite warming to the nickname, she previously revealed she wasn't a fan because it was "very one-dimensional" and is a "cartoonist's dream, but it's not me".
National leader Judith Collins has opened up about her controversial nickname "Crusher" after it was coined more than a decade ago. Photo / File
As for Collins' favourite nickname, she says it's the name her husband refers to her by.
"My favourite nickname? My husband calls me Jude."
Collins says methamphetamine harm will no longer be put in the "too hard basket" in a government under her watch.
On a visit to Napier on Monday Collins announced the party's plan which will tackle supplies coming into prisons, target organised crime networks, increase drug dogs at airports and establish a $50 million contestable fund for reduction programmes.
It will also use a health response modelled on the successful Matrix programme up in the 1990s in the US to tackle its cocaine epidemic.
Collins said that wastewater testing showed meth now accounts for over half of NZ's detected drugs, and caused up to $1b a year in social harm.
"What the numbers hide is the individual tragedy and the tragedies of those who fall victim to meth the families ripped apart by meth and the victims who suffer the consequences of violent attacks. We cannot continue to say it is too hard to do anything about it."
Collins said Labour had "very quietly" rescinded National's 2017 plan to deal with meth when it came into office, and what it had created was a "piecemeal approach".
"To me it's really sad that it's been put in the too hard basket by some people.
"This is a drug that affects every strata of society. Every profession, every trade, every job has this in it. It is not solely people involved in the transport industry or journalism or politics or anything like that. It is right through society.
Collins said the disruption of supply, combined with a strong health response, would be hard but it was not so hard that NZ couldn't do it.
"We've got supposedly closed border now, it can't be that difficult can it?"
