The upcoming concert of National Party leader Judith Collins: suspense writer

National Party leader Judith Collins says she plans to write a thriller this summer.

Collins has told Heather Du Plessis-Allan at NewstalkZB that she enjoyed writing her autobiography so much last summer that she is now planning the thriller.

When asked what she was going to do this summer, she said, “I’m going to say this publicly, so I feel absolutely obligated to do it. I’m going to be plotting a little plot for a thriller.”

“I love writing, it’s actually very relaxing for me,” he said.

“I wrote my last book entirely over the Christmas holidays. It seemed like a very relaxing time.”

His autobiography, Pull No Punches – Memoir of a Political Survivor, was published in June, just a month before he became leader of the National Party after Todd Muller resigned in July.

She led National to its second-biggest loss in recent history, which reduced its caucus from 55 MPs to 33.

But he was enraged when Du Plessis-Allan asked him if writing thriller would now be his life “after politics.”

“During politics, thank you very much! A job on vacation. This place [Parliament] it’s full of stories, “he said.

“It’s a summer concert.”

Collins, a former attorney, completed a Graduate Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety at Massey University from 2015 to 2019 while serving as a minister and later as an opposition deputy.

He said he hadn’t started writing the thriller yet, but was just thinking about it.

“I won’t have it ready for a while because I just want to trace it,” he said.

But when pressed, he said it could be ready “potentially by next Christmas.”

Earlier, he told Du Plessis-Allan that his first reaction was not to take the leadership of the National Party when he was asked to take over after Muller’s surprise resignation.

“I said no. I said some other things that I’m not going to repeat,” he said.

“And I slept. I woke up and felt, well, having told my colleagues that I would be good at work, the last thing I should do is run away from what is going to be a really difficult time.”

He also told Du Plessis-Allan that National would support a no-confidence motion against Speaker of Parliament Trevor Mallard after he apologized this week for accusing a member of parliamentary staff of rape.

“Our party would support that [motion] although this matter has not been adequately resolved to the satisfaction of Parliament, “he said.

He also called for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the deaths of 22 people in the Whakaari / White Island eruption a year ago.