Mystery ‘back Judith’ site taken down
An anonymous website backing Judith Collins for National Party leader is registered to her electorate office address, a fake phone number, and what appears to be a fake identity.
The now-deleted BackJudith.nz said it is ‘‘in no way endorsed by the National Party formal hierarchy, or Judith Collins’’ – a view that Collins echoes.
But a domain name lookup on ‘‘whois’’ has the website registered to her office address with the phone number +64 123456789.
Hert electorate office address is publicly available and there is nothing to stop a person not associated with the office using it.
Since Stuff published a story online about the website, it appears to have been deleted.
The name associated with the registration was Raquel Ray. There is no online or ownership records of a Raquel Ray in New Zealand, save for a recently created Facebook account and a smattering of Official Information Act requests to the Callaghan Innovation.
That Facebook account, which has posted a link to the BackJudith website, has a profile picture found on a photography website. That photographer said the person in the photo was not someone named ‘‘Raquel Ray’’.
Collins said she and her office had nothing to do with the website. ‘‘I know that nobody in my office would actually be able to do that.’’
She assumed it was someone who really did want to support her but preferred to remain anonymous. ‘‘I presume it’s not someone trying to cause difficulty for me.’’
If her office had secretly set the site up, ‘‘using my work address would be a really dumb thing to do’’.
The website urges people to sign a letter asking National MPs to back Collins for the party’s leadership role. ‘‘I am a member/supporter of the National Party and am concerned about the future direction of New Zealand under the new Labour, NZ First, Green coalition Government,’’ it reads.
‘‘I believe Ms Collins is the best option for our party – to deliver a victory in 2020 and deliver another strong, stable, National-led government to lock in our economic success and stability.’’
Yesterday, 388 people appeared to have signed the letter.
The New Zealand Taxpayers Union has run a campaign around Callaghan Innovation expenses.
Director Jordan Williams said it had a ‘‘Raquel Ray’’ in its database as someone who had sent in tip-offs in the past.
Williams said he and his staff were not involved in the website.