Judith Collins, Minister of Justice, resigned from her position as minister today. The Labour Party has called for her resignation for some time because of a number of problems. The Prime Minister said recently they were “mistakes” and everyone makes mistakes. However, the Prime Minister spoke to her today after another “mistake” and she decided to resign.
The first problem was in May this year when she visited China. Her visit was paid for by taxpayers but she had a private dinner with a Chinese milk powder company. Her husband is a director of this company. A photo of all the people at the dinner was taken and displayed by the company. This looked as though the New Zealand government was connected with the company.
The book, Dirty Politics, which was published 2 weeks ago, showed that Judith Collins had been giving private information to a blogger who made this information public. Some of this information attacked the Labour Party.
Judith Collins said today that she had done nothing wrong and will prove this. She is still an MP and hopes to win her seat in the election. The election will be held on Saturday September 20th.
In 2010, Pansy Wong, Minister of Ethnic Affairs, resigned as Minister partly because of her husband’s business interests. Listen to November 13th 2010 to hear about her resignation.
Vocabulary
• resign (v), resignation (n) – leave the job
• blogger – someone who writes a blog
Question
Does a Minister of Justice have to be more careful than other Ministers about avoiding mistakes?
very good!