Here’s a cool fun story about Judith Collins: Once in 2014 I was in the Parliament gym changing rooms and another staffer started making small talk with me. She asked me who I worked for, and I said Metiria Turei. She said “She’s got some lovely clothes recently, hasn’t she?”

And went on further to ask if they were by the designer Adrienne Winkelmann (they were). I asked who she worked for, and she said Judith Collins. She said Judith had some Adrienne Winkelmann clothes and weren’t they lovely yada yada.

Quite honestly, the next day, Judith Collins told the media and other members of National (notably Tolley and Finlayson) that this uppity grassroots Greens activist had the audacity to buy expensive clothes, and Metiria started getting media calls about it.

Judith also called her jackets ugly in the House, to further draw attention to it. When Metiria, quite rightly, pointed out on one of the many media calls asking how much her clothes cost, that this was a sexist and racist attack, Judith called her a “sensitive sausage”.

Being a younger Māori woman with anarchist roots and a kind of wacky sense of style, Metiria was constantly given crap for not being professional enough or fitting in with all the starch and buttons of Parliament. So, 10 years in the House she caved & got some fancy Tory clothes.

They were expensive, but they were also quite literally required of her. But, being someone who advocated for action on poverty, she literally couldn’t win - if she didn’t look the part of a Party leader, she wasn’t taken seriously, and if she did, she was a sell out.

Judith Collins knew that, and chose to quite literally make the wardrobe choices of another woman a focus of attack for shits and giggles. Also her staffer using locker room small talk as intel is gross and I hope that person feels gross. That’s my cool fun Judith Collins story.