‘Things I Can’t Control’: National Leader Judith ‘Crusher’ Collins Opens Up About Nickname

National leader Judith Collins has opened up about her controversial nickname “Crusher” after it was coined more than a decade ago.

Speaking to the media during the launch of his meth policy in Hawke’s Bay, Collins revealed that he initially thought the term was “dehumanizing” and felt it had a rather negative underlying meaning.

But since then he has liked the name and sees the funny side of the term.

“It’s not something I’ve never used myself. It’s funny. I often thought it was used as a way to dehumanize, but I guess after many years I learned not to worry about things that I can’t control.” “he told reporters.

“Sometimes people now say it with affection. If it is said with affection, then that’s fine, but don’t expect me to use it.

“I think that’s what I felt about it [dehumanising] at the time.

“It has been around for 16 years, it is water from the back of a duck.”

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Collins earned the nickname in 2009 when he earned a reputation for talking tough.

She was quickly nicknamed Crusher Collins when she proposed legislation to “smash” the cars of persistent little racers.

She went so far as to describe herself as the minister “who regained deterrence.”

When asked if he found the name misogynistic, Collins said that media politics “is not for the faint hearted” and that he is happy to be talked about.

“There may be [misogyny in nicknames]. People like Rob Muldoon were called Piggy Muldoon. I don’t think it was misogyny, I just think people chose to use that name.

“If you dedicate yourself to politics it is not for the fainthearted. You get used to this. They have called me everything.

“Okay, whatever, as long as they call you.”

Despite feeling sympathy for the nickname, she previously revealed that she was not a fan because it was “very one-dimensional” and is “a cartoonist’s dream, but it’s not me.”

As for Collins’ favorite nickname, she says it is the name her husband refers to.

“My favorite nickname? My husband calls me Jude.”

National announces plan to combat methamphetamine

Collins says the harm from methamphetamine will no longer be put in the “too-hard basket” in a government under his watch.

In a visit to Napier on Monday, Collins announced the party’s plan that will address supplies going into prisons, target organized crime networks, increase drug dogs at airports and establish a disputable $ 50 million fund to reduction programs.

It will also use a health response inspired by the hit 1990s US Matrix program to tackle the cocaine epidemic.

Collins said sewage tests showed that methamphetamine now accounts for more than half of the drugs detected in New Zealand and causes up to $ 1 billion a year in social harm.

“What the numbers hide is the individual tragedy and the tragedies of those who are victims of methamphetamine, families torn apart by methamphetamine and victims who suffer the consequences of violent attacks. We cannot continue to say that it is too difficult to do something while respect. “

Collins said the Labor Party had “very quietly rescinded” National’s 2017 plan to deal with methamphetamine when he took office, and what it had created was a “gradual approach.”

“This is something that destroys people.

“It’s really sad to me that some people put him in too hard a basket.

“This is a drug that affects all strata of society. Every profession, every trade, every job has this. It’s not just the people involved in the transportation industry or journalism or politics or something like that. It is. going through society.

Collins said the supply disruption, combined with a strong health response, would be difficult, but it was not so difficult that New Zealand couldn’t do it.

“We have the supposedly closed border now, it can’t be that difficult, right?”