Collins: National Party should not ‘peak’ early
As a fresh batch of leadership rumours swirl, National Party leader Judith Collins says she has full confidence that her caucus backs her – and that National does not need to pick up its party vote any time soon.
Collins spoke to Stuff about her leadership after a NZ Herald column floated the idea of former leader Simon Bridges mounting some kind of new leadership bid with ex-Air NZ chief executive Christopher Luxon as deputy.
Bridges himself was less than definitive when asked about the matter on Tuesday, saying he supported Collins ‘‘at this time’’ and that he talked ‘‘with lots of colleagues. I can’t be expected to remember everything I say’’.
Collins said National would not want to ‘‘peak 21⁄2 years out from an election’’ and she had not set herself a party-vote target.
National’s party-vote polling has remained woeful after winning 25.6 per cent at the election, despite a slight slackening of Labour’s commanding lead.
A 1 News/Colmar Brunton poll in early March had National at
27 per cent, while a recent Roy Morgan poll had the party at
23 per cent. UMR, Labour’s pollster, had National at 26 per cent in a private poll for corporate clients in February.
Collins told Stuff yesterday leadership rumours were natural for an opposition party after an election defeat but they distracted from policy issues that actually mattered to voters.
‘‘It is very easy to have a bit of rumour-making, a bit of mischiefmaking, but actually everyone is on-side and I have the 100 per cent support of my caucus,’’ Collins said. ‘‘It is easy journalism, it is easy politics, the harder stuff is dealing with the policy issues and that is what we are doing.’’
Asked if she had a party-vote target for her leadership by the end of the year – she famously set under 35 per cent as the sacking mark during her leadership bid in 2018 – Collins said she did not.
‘‘I don’t, and I don’t have it for a very good reason – we are 21⁄2 years out from the next election,’’ Collins said. ‘‘If we do the groundwork, if we do the foundation work, if we build our ability to be an alternative government, then things will work out.’’ She said National would not want to peak too early, so had to be disciplined about which issues it pursued. ‘‘We are not going to chase every single car.’’
Asked if this meant she did not actually want her party vote up, Collins said no – it meant not chasing headlines every day.