Public Service Commission<\/a>.<\/p>\nSpeaking to RNZ, Green co-leader Chl\u00f6e Swarbrick said Collins’ effective anointment was “deeply concerning” and risked further damaging already “plummeting trust” in the coalition government.<\/p>\n
“These independent processes are set up to protect against cronyism and corruption,” she said.<\/p>\n
“How on earth can we possibly say that somebody was appointed because they were the best person for the job, when there was a decision to not even consider anybody else for that job?”<\/p>\n
The responsible minister Paul Goldsmith told RNZ he was certain he had followed due process and rejected any suggestion of cronyism.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes there’s been an external panel [for appointing this position]. Sometimes there hasn’t,” he said, adding there was a “long tradition” of former politicians serving on the Commission.<\/p>\n
“We’re absolutely confident in the abilities of Judith Collins to do the job well. She’s obviously got hugely extensive… experience in justice roles across many many years.”<\/p>\n
A spokesperson told RNZ Collins recused herself from the Cabinet decision.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced in January that Collins would step down from politics to take up the “prestigious” role at the Law Commission from mid-year.<\/p>\n
University of Otago law professor Andrew Geddis said past practice around such appointments appeared “pretty flexible”, but this example looked “nakedly political”.<\/p>\n
“The worry is that if you’ve got very loose flexible processes… then it’s open to misuse to an even greater extent in the future.”<\/p>\n
Geddis said Collins may well do a good job in her new position but would face a challenge convincing the public she could uphold its independence.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think it’s conspiracy thinking to say that the government has chosen to reward one of its long-standing loyal servants with this role.”<\/p>\n
Collins’ predecessor Mark Hickford was appointed to the Commission in October but given an unusually short six-month term as president, “pending the confirmation of a new president in the new year”.<\/p>\n
Collins was unavailable for comment, having departed for Germany on Wednesday to attend the Munich Security Conference.<\/p>\n
Last month she told media she intended to play “a straight bat” in the role: “This is too important. The Law Commission is not there to play political games.”<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero, a daily newsletter<\/a> curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judith Collins will remain an MP and continue to hold her portfolios until she moves to her new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-281081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281081","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=281081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}