2020 vote: Judith Collins ‘upset’ after Ardern’s inquiry into her past with the SFO

Opposition leader Judith Collins says she is displeased with the Prime Minister’s response to National’s plan to double the budget for the Office of Serious Fraud.

National announced today that it would double the budget of the Office of Serious Fraud if elected, to investigate more cases of fraud, bribery and corruption.

“The SFO takes very few prosecutions, not because there is no fraud, bribery and corruption in New Zealand, but because the office does not have the resources to do its job properly,” National Leader Collins said in a speech this morning.

He pledged to double the OFS budget from $ 12.7 million a year to $ 25 million, and said it would be renamed “Agency Against Serious Fraud and Corruption,” which, Collins said, left more of course the focus was not just blank. -Crimes of necklaces that involve private companies.

But Labor leader Jacinda Ardern criticized the stance, referring to Collins’ resignation from a ministerial post in 2014 due to a commitment to the OFS.

“It’s interesting to hear now … obviously there is a bit of history there with the opposition leader and the OFS,” he said.

“As a previous minister, her commitment to the OFS led to her losing her job.”

Judith Collins told Heather du Plessis-Allan it was “a very low blow” and said an investigation had cleared her of any inappropriate action.

“I was disgusted with that answer of hers and clearly wrong,” he told du Plessis-Allan.

“I just thought ‘My God, where did the goodness go now?’ I thought he wanted a clean campaign and that was pretty dirty. “

Collins, once responsible minister for the OFS, resigned from that and other ministerial portfolios in the run-up to the 2014 elections, after an email surfaced that appeared to link her to a blogging campaign to undermine the former head of the OFS, Adam Feeley.

Then Prime Minister John Key launched an investigation, which found that while Collins had provided information about Feeley to WhaleOil blogger Cameron Slater, “there was nothing inappropriate in supplying this information.”

Collins was later reinstated in Key’s cabinet.

Tonight he told du Plessis that Allan Ardern was probably nervous about the Newshub debate tomorrow night.

“God, the veil is definitely slipping right?”