Judith Anne Collins (born 24 February 1959) is a New Zealand politician who served as the attorney-general and minister of defence from 27 November 2023 to 7 April 2026. She served as the leader of the Opposition and leader of the New Zealand National Party from 14 July 2020 to 25 November 2021. Collins served as the member of Parliament (MP) for Papakura from 2008 to 2026 and was MP for Clevedon from 2002 to 2008.
Born in Hamilton, Collins studied at Matamata College, the University of Canterbury and University of Auckland. Before entering politics, she worked as a commercial lawyer and was President of the Auckland District Law Society and Vice-President of the New Zealand Law Society. She was a solicitor for four different firms from 1981 and 1990, before running her own practice for a decade. She was a director of Housing New Zealand from 1999 to 2001 and worked as special counsel for Minter Ellison Rudd Watts from 2000 to 2002 before she entered Parliament at the .
Collins was appointed to the Cabinet by Prime Minister John Key when the National Party entered government at the . She was ranked fifth in the Cabinet and the highest-ranked woman. Collins served as minister of police and minister of corrections from 2008 to 2011 and 2015 to 2016. After the , she was appointed minister of justice and minister for the ACC. In August 2014 Collins was compelled to resign following email leaks alleging she had undermined the head of the Serious Fraud Office whilst she was police minister. While she was not cleared of wrongdoing related to that incident, she returned to the Cabinet in 2015. Collins served under Prime Minister Bill English as minister of revenue and minister of energy and resources from 2016 to 2017.
After the National Party left government in the , Collins served in several shadow portfolios. She was elected to succeed Todd Muller as National Party leader by the parliamentary caucus on 14 July 2020, becoming leader of the Opposition. She was the second female leader of the National Party, after Jenny Shipley. She led the party to its second-worst defeat in the party's history at the 2020 election, losing 23 seats. Collins was removed as leader of the National Party by its caucus on 25 November 2021, the day after she suddenly demoted Simon Bridges, a political rival, for allegations of making a since-resolved inappropriate comment in 2017.
Following National's victory in the 2023 election, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon appointed Collins to Cabinet; she held seven ministerial posts. Collins was then the longest continuously serving female MP, and considered the Mother of the House. In January 2026 Collins announced she had been appointed as president of the New Zealand Law Commission, and she retired from politics on 14 May 2026.
Early life and career Collins was born in Hamilton. Her parents were dairy farmers Percy and Jessie Collins of Walton in the Waikato and she was the youngest of six children. She was educated at Walton School, Matamata Intermediate and Matamata College. In 1977 and 1978, she studied at the University of Canterbury. In 1979, she switched to the University of Auckland, and obtained first a Bachelor of Laws degree and then Master of Laws (Hons) and later Master of Taxation Studies (MTaxS) degrees. In 2020, she graduated with a Graduate Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety from Massey University. She met her husband, Chinese-Samoan David Wong-Tung, at university. He was then a police officer and had migrated from Samoa as a child. They have one son. Collins has described herself as a liberal Anglican.
Collins was a Labour Party supporter from childhood, but by 2002 had been a member of the National Party for three years. She has been a member of Zonta International and of Rotary International.
Professional career After leaving university, she worked as a lawyer, specialising in employment, property, commercial, and tax law. She worked as a solicitor for four different firms between 1981 and 1990 and then became principal of her own firm, Judith Collins & Associates (1990–2000). In the last two years before the election to Parliament, she worked as special counsel for Minter Ellison Rudd Watts (2000–2002).
She was active in legal associations, and was President of the Auckland District Law Society (1998–1999) and Vice-President of the New Zealand Law Society (1999–2000). She served as chairperson of the Casino Control Authority (1999–2002) and was a director of Housing New Zealand Limited (1999–2001).
Early parliamentary career (2002–2008)
Collins was elected to Parliament in the as the National MP for Clevedon. Although technically a new electorate, Clevedon was largely based on the old electorate, held by National's Warren Kyd.
In Parliament, Collins became National's Associate Spokesperson on Health and Spokesperson on Internal Affairs. In 2003, these responsibilities were changed for those of Associate Spokesperson on Justice and Spokesperson on Tourism. She was generally regarded as having performed well and when Katherine Rich refused to give full support to the controversial Orewa Speech by then-party leader Don Brash, Rich was demoted in February 2005 and Collins became National's spokesperson on Social Welfare instead. Collins then served as spokesperson on Family and spokesperson on Pacific Island Affairs.
In 2003, while in opposition, Collins campaigned for an inquiry to find out whether New Zealand troops were exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War and if so any effect this subsequently had. Despite previous inquiries stating otherwise, the committee established that troops were exposed to defoliant chemicals during their service in Vietnam, and therefore operated in a toxic environment. This resulted in an apology in 2004 from the Labour-led Government to Veterans and the establishment of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support veterans. In 2004 Collins was awarded the Ex-Vietnam Services Association Pin for campaigning for the inquiry.
Collins's Clevedon electorate disappeared under boundary changes for the . She originally announced her intention to seek the National Party nomination for Howick, which comprises the urban part of her former Clevedon electorate. However, following objections made to the Electoral Commission over draft changes to the boundaries that saw a major redrawing of the adjacent constituency Pakuranga, the draft Howick was redrawn and renamed Botany. Collins then sought and won the nomination for Papakura (which comprises the other half of her former Clevedon electorate) and allowed her colleague National Party MP Pansy Wong to seek nomination for Botany. Collins won Papakura with a majority of more than 10,000 votes.
Fifth National Government (2008–2017) The National Party formed a government after the 2008 election, and Collins entered Cabinet with the portfolios of Police, Corrections and Veterans' Affairs. Early in 2009, she was created Minister Responsible for the Serious Fraud Office.
After the she was appointed Minister of Justice, Minister of Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and Minister of Ethnic Affairs and, with a Cabinet ranking of five, was the highest ranked woman.
Minister of Corrections
In 2009, Collins questioned the leadership of, and later refused to express confidence in, Department of Corrections chief executive Barry Matthews, after a spate of bad publicity. However, after an enquiry by the State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie, Matthews kept his job because Corrections had made efforts to improve and had warned the government of the day and the previous government that under-resourcing was putting public safety at risk.
Collins increased the availability of work programmes in prison, and increased funding to widen the availability of alcohol and drug treatment programmes. Corrections built three new Drug Treatment Units and introducing condensed treatment programmes for prisoners serving shorter sentences. Collins oversaw completion of a new prison in Mount Eden, Auckland, and instigated the private management contract for the new prison to British company Serco, on the recommendation of the Department of Corrections. This was the first prison since 2005 to be managed by a private sector contractor.
In June 2010, Collins announced that from 1 July 2011 tobacco smoking and possessing lighters in prison would be banned, to reduce the health risk that smoking and fire presented to prison guards and prisoners. This ban was subsequently successfully challenged in court on two occasions, resulting in a law change to maintain it.
Minister of Police Following a police trial of tasers in 2006–07, Collins supported their introduction by then Police Commissioner Howard Broad. In the 2009 budget she announced NZ$10 million worth of funding to complete a nationwide taser roll-out to all police districts, and since then has advocated that the police be given further discretion about when they can equip themselves with tasers. She has also supported increased access to firearms for frontline officers, by equipping all front-line police vehicles with lock boxes for firearms, but does not support the full-time general arming of police officers.
During her early years in parliament, Collins developed a reputation for tough talking and in 2009 was nicknamed "Crusher Collins" when she proposed legislation to 'crush' the cars of persistent boy racers. Collins described herself as the minister "who brought back deterrence".
Minister of Justice In 2012, Collins moderated the cuts-back to legal aid begun by her predecessor, Simon Power. She reduced the charges for family and civil cases, delayed the period before interest is charged on outstanding legal aid debt and dropped a proposal to make it harder to get legal aid for less serious crimes such as theft, assault or careless driving. She did however retain fixed fees for criminal work and the rotation of the legal aid to lawyers in all but the most serious cases, which attracted criticism from some lawyers.
After a two-year investigation the Law Commission produced a report for government with 153 recommendations to reform New Zealand's alcohol laws. While some legislative changes were passed in December 2012, the Opposition and health sector lobbyists said the evidence-based advice from the Commission was disregarded by Collins and her predecessor Simon Power with the result that the final legislation "was a pale imitation of the landmark Law Commission report it was based on." Examples include Collins originally announcing a ban in May 2012 of ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages with 6 per cent alcohol or more from off-licenses. However, in the face of criticism from the liquor industry, she back-tracked on this ban, and three months later announced that the industry would develop its own voluntary code "to limit the harm to young people caused by RTDs". The Commission also recommended a 50 per cent tax increase on alcohol (which was dismissed immediately by the Government) and an increase in the purchase age, which was also dismissed after a conscience vote in September 2012. Collins herself voted to raise the purchase age. Overall Collins said "the reforms struck a sensible balance by reducing the serious harm caused by alcohol without penalising people who drank responsibly." The Labour Party and Professor Doug Sellman said that the changes were weak and would do little to reduce the harm caused by binge drinking. Sellman said: "It's called the Alcohol Reform Bill but it has no reforms in it".