Collins also mentioned the Government\u2019s Defence Capability Plan and associated budget funding, which will lift spending to levels not seen in generations.<\/p>\n
Minister of Defence Judith Collins in July last year. Photo \/ File<\/p>\n
Collins thanked Finance Minister Nicola Willis \u201cfor being the first Minister of Finance in many lifetimes to put our money where my mouth is\u201d.<\/p>\n
She also mentioned her turbulent time as National Party leader. She won the role after a turbulent few months in which National went through two leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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 7 weeks, during the global pandemic and a few months before the election. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe never gave up and we did not run away. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is often commented that I have a fair bit of resilience. Well, we don\u2019t get to be resilient without having to be. I sometimes quip that adversity is just an opportunity to show character,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Collins played tribute to her husband, David Wong-Tung, and her son. She said she was blessed by her family. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn my choice of parents, I was profoundly blessed. My father always told me to never let anyone make me feel less than them. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother told me that I was \u2018Mummy\u2019s little baby all the way from Heaven\u2019. I sometimes think I was better at living up to my father\u2019s expectations than my mother\u2019s,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Collins also mentioned the Government\u2019s Defence Capability Plan and associated budget funding, which will lift spending to levels…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2782,13956,95,217289,8908,36177,1364,78,42445,6451,56057,15973,3556,13631,111,43,139,69,24637,6744,97813,10536,1361,1530],"class_list":["post-423442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-2782","tag-ambition","tag-and","tag-bowed","tag-check","tag-collins","tag-her","tag-in","tag-judith","tag-knew","tag-knowing","tag-longstanding","tag-national","tag-never","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-parliament","tag-place","tag-reflecting","tag-someone","tag-that","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423442","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=423442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}