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# A Poverty of Plain Speaking Never Affected Judith Collins
- URL: https://goodoil.news/a-poverty-of-plain-speaking-never-affected-judith-collins/
- Published: 2020-07-15T20:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2020-07-15T06:04:27.000Z
- Author: Lindsay Mitchell
- Tags: Election 2020, NZ, NZ Politics, Politics, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-17 03:00

**Lindsay Mitchell**  
[lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com](https://lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com/2020/07/a-poverty-of-plain-speaking-never.html?ref=goodoil.news)

Judith Collins has been in parliament for a long time and I have blogged about her for the duration. Not extensively but when I agreed or disagreed with her comments. She was, after all, National’s spokesperson on Social Development from 2005-08\. She once made a deliberately audible comment when I approached her at a welfare forum, “Here comes Lindsay Mitchell to tell me I am too soft on welfare.” Didn’t bother me bar I never saw myself as ‘hard’ on welfare. I just believed welfare was hard on kids.

But here’s a relatively recent contribution (2016) that contains more than a kernel of truth. It’s also a good example of why I wrote[ this morning](https://goodoil.news/two-minute-todd/), “…she says what she means and means what she says.” The [link](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/315489/'i-see-a-poverty-of-parental-responsibility'?ref=goodoil.news) is still live:

*Reported on Radio New Zealand:*

> Ms Collins was challenged at the Police Association’s annual conference in Wellington today by a delegate, who said poverty was making law enforcement harder.  
> The delegate said his officers had been very busy with gangs, which he said were often filled with people who had experienced poverty as children.  
> The government’s approach to child poverty was criticised in a recent United Nations report, as well as by opposition politicians.  
> Ms Collins responded by saying the government was doing a lot more for child poverty in New Zealand than the UN had ever done.  
> In New Zealand, there was money available to everyone who needed it, she said.  
> “It’s not that, it’s people who don’t look after their children, that’s the problem.  
> “And they can’t look after their children in many cases because they don’t know how to look after their children or even think they should look after their children.”  
> Monetary poverty was not the only problem, she said.  
> **“I see a poverty of ideas, a poverty of parental responsibility, a poverty of love, a poverty of caring.”**  
> As the MP for Papakura, she saw a lot of those problems in south Auckland, she said.  
> “And I can tell you it is not just a lack of money, it is primarily a lack of responsibility.  
> “I know that is not PC, but, you know, that’s me.”

I see a poverty of plain speaking holding New Zealand back, badly, if the practice is not re-established. Collins could trigger its return.

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