\u201cBefore being elected to Parliament I practised law for 21 years. Some might say law is my first love, so it seems fitting it will soon be my professional focus once again, she said.<\/p>\n
Collins is expected to hold a press conference around midday. A livestream will be available at the top of this article.<\/p>\n
Luxon, in a statement, said he felt \u201cgreat regret and enormous gratitude\u201d in announcing Collins\u2019 new appointment. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe role requires astute legal knowledge \u2013 something Judith is eminently qualified for. She will follow in the footsteps of other highly regarded New Zealanders such as Sir Geoffrey Palmer.<\/p>\n
\u201cJudith has given more than two decades of her life to Parliament and public service as a Member of Parliament, Minister, and Leader of the Opposition. Throughout that time, she has served this country with commitment and conviction. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe has carried a wide range of portfolios in Government and fronted some of the most difficult challenges without flinching.\u201d<\/p>\n
Collins \u2013 the Attorney General \u2013 currently holds several key ministerial portfolios, namely defence and the public service. <\/p>\n
Collins became leader of the National Party in 2020, while in Opposition against Jacinda Ardern\u2019s Labour Party.<\/p>\n
National lost that year\u2019s election as Labour achieved MMP\u2019s first-ever single-party majority. <\/p>\n
Judith Collins was the National Party leader during the 2020 election against Labour’s Jacinda Ardern. <\/p>\n
Her ascent came at a tumultuous time for the party: she replaced Todd Muller, who had ousted former party leader Simon Bridges, and who stood down from the role after only 53 days.<\/p>\n
Collins led the party from July 2020 until November the following year when she was rolled as leader after an attempt to discipline Bridges backfired. <\/p>\n
At the time, Luxon and Mark Mitchell were considered the front-runners to replace her. <\/p>\n
Shane Reti, who was the deputy at the time, was installed as interim leader before Luxon was appointed as leader.<\/p>\n
Collins was first elected to Parliament in 2002 after winning the then-Clevedon electorate seat. <\/p>\n
She then won the Papakura electorate after Clevedon disappeared in boundary changes ahead of the 2008 election, and has held the seat since.<\/p>\n
During her time in Parliament, Collins earned the nickname \u201cCrusher\u201d following her policy of crushing cars seized from criminals.<\/p>\n
A number of current MPs have recently announced they will be standing down, including Labour\u2019s Adrian Rurawhe, National\u2019s Maureen Pugh and Paulo Garcia. <\/p>\n
Green Party MP Celia Wade-Brown this morning also announced she would not stand in this year\u2019s election. <\/p>\n
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBefore being elected to Parliament I practised law for 21 years. Some might say law is my first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,6726,36177,2371,2740,71,42445,13489,6722,3556,111,43,139,69,4762,135,2572,6652,8667],"class_list":["post-254906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-and","tag-become","tag-collins","tag-commission","tag-former","tag-from","tag-judith","tag-leader","tag-minister","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-party","tag-politics","tag-president","tag-retires","tag-retiring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}