The National MP is saying her farewells after a long career.
Longstanding National MP Judith Collins has bowed out of Parliament, saying she was never someone who knew her place but didn’t let that check her ambition.
“I have never had patience for the concept of ‘doing my time’, or worse still, ‘knowing my place’; and the Parliament and theNational Party caucus room of 2002 are a lot different from what they are today,” Collins said, reflecting on the year she entered Parliament.
Collins joked that as someone who did not know her place, Parliament was not a happy spot for her when she first entered it.
“I decided to make the most of what I had since I knew that I am genetically incapable of sucking up to hierarchy in order to get ahead,” she said.
Collins said she had held too many portfolios to list them all, but gave some highlights, including banning smoking in prisons, and, as Attorney-General, settling the Nelson Tenths’ litigation, a longstanding Māori land dispute.
She also mentioned the Government’s Defence Capability Plan and associated budget funding, which will lift spending to levels not seen in generations.
Judith Collins, seen performing her duties as Defence Minister in July last year. Defence is one of the many portfolios she has held over more than two decades in Parliament. Photo / File
Collins thanked Nicola Willis “for being the first Minister of Finance in many lifetimes to put our money where my mouth is”.
She also mentioned her time as National Party leader, having won the role after a turbulent few months in which the party went through two leaders.
“I would like to acknowledge you, Mr Speaker [Gerry Brownlee], Shane Reti, David Bennett, Jacqui Dean, Andrew Bayly, Stuart Smith, Nicola Willis, Todd McClay, Harete Hipango and Maureen Pugh for your courage and your friendship during the toughest of times when I was asked to take the reins in 2020 as the third leader of the Opposition in seven weeks, during the global pandemic and a few months before the election.
“We never gave up and we did not run away.
“It is often commented that I have a fair bit of resilience. Well, we don’t get to be resilient without having to be. I sometimes quip that adversity is just an opportunity to show character,” she said.
Collins paid tribute to her husband, David Wong-Tung, and her son. She said she was blessed by her family.
“In my choice of parents, I was profoundly blessed. My father always told me to never let anyone make me feel less than them.
“My mother told me that I was, ‘Mummy’s little baby all the way from Heaven’. I sometimes think I was better at living up to my father’s expectations than my mother’s,” she said.
