FOR OLD TIME’S SAKE

Judith “Crusher” Collins was in good spirits this afternoon after announcing her retirement from a 25 year career in politics.

Collins earned the nickname “Crusher” back in 2009 when she proposed that boy racers should have their cars crushed as punishment for breaking road laws. By 2017, official figures showed that only three cars were actually crushed under the legislation, making it one of the more symbolic policies of the era.

Today, in what aides described as a “full circle moment”, Collins marked her exit from Parliament by arranging for her own parliamentary BMW to be crushed into a neat metal cube.

“It seemed like a fitting end to a career in politics,” Collins told reporters, standing a safe distance away from the hydraulic press. “I never really got to crush any boy racers’ cars in the end, so getting to crush this car, which also isn’t technically mine, feels very on brand.”

The vehicle, which had been used to ferry Collins to countless meetings, press conferences and tense coalition negotiations, was lowered into the crusher to polite applause from a small group of onlookers and staffers who had nothing else scheduled for the afternoon.

“It’s quite emotional,” said one former staffer. “That car has seen a lot. Mostly painful Wellington traffic.”

Collins watched on approvingly as the machine did its work, nodding slightly as the roof buckled.

“There’s something very satisfying about it,” she said. “You wait years for something decisive to happen, and then it finally does.”

The crushed BMW will reportedly be displayed briefly in Te Papa before being recycled, much like several policy ideas from Collins’ long career.

As for retirement, Collins says she is looking forward to a quieter life as President of the Law Commission. 

“Less meetings. Less noise. And absolutely no cars to crush,” she said.

“So talofa everyone”.

More to come. 

The post Crusher Collins Celebrates Retirement By Having Her Own Parliamentary Vehicle Crushed appeared first on The Whakataki Times.

SOLUTION WITHOUT A PROBLEM

Judith Collins has announced the government’s big new plan to “make life easier” for New Zealanders, by replacing everyone’s perfectly fine plastic driver’s licence with a digital one on your phone.

This was despite no one in this country at all asking for it. Not a single person.

Most Kiwis, currently just trying to pay the mortgage or afford groceries, didn’t wake up thinking, “Gee, this plastic rectangle is really holding me back.”

Collins fronted the cameras this week to sell the new scheme, calling it “the future of convenience.” But she seemed completely unable to explain what’s actually inconvenient about having a card that lives quietly in your wallet, causing no problems for anyone.

When pressed by reporters, she simply smiled and said, “It’s about modernisation.” Which, for many New Zealanders, translated roughly to: “It’s about fixing something that isn’t broken while everything else is on fire.”

Public trust in government tech projects is already critically low, and many suspect this could be a sneaky step toward a bigger “digital identity” system, much like what they do over in China. But Collins dismissed those fears, insisting it’s just about making life “simpler” somehow.

Meanwhile, everyday New Zealanders remain focused on slightly more pressing issues, like rent, fuel prices, and whether they can still afford butter.

“It’s funny,” said one Auckland man. “They say this is about convenience, but I’d find it a lot more convenient if my grocery bill was fifty bucks cheaper.”

So while Judith Collins dreams of a sleek, paperless utopia (with absolutely no social credit score controlling every aspect of our lives, of course), most Kiwis are just dreaming of being able to fill up their tanks.

More to come.

The post Government Struggling To Explain What’s Inconvenient About Having A Wallet With A Licence In It appeared first on The Whakataki Times.