Papers reveal Collins' costly meddling

Documents released today show the extent of Judith Collins’ behind-the-scenes interference to try to undermine Justice Binnie’s report on the David Bain case, Labour’s Justice spokesperson Charles Chauvel says.

“Judith Collins has worked relentlessly since 26 September to pick holes in Justice Binnie’s reasoning.  She has spent $100,000 of taxpayers’ funds on a nit-picking review of the Binnie report, which itself cost taxpayers over $400,000.

“How much more of our money will she spend on the further report that now seems inevitable as a result of her mismanagement of this process?

“Why on earth didn’t Judith Collins just ask Justice Binnie to review the aspects of his initial work that dissatisfied her?  Clearly she made some of these known to him since he wrote to her twice to seek to address them.

“At the same time she was instructing Robert Fisher QC to critique Justice Binnie’s work on a far wider basis of criticism than she ever made clear to him.”

Charles Chauvel says that, at least on an initial perusal of the documents released today, the criticisms of Justice Binnie’s work are greatly overstated: “It certainly doesn’t merit spending another $100,000 to try to undermine it.

“Judith Collins’ meddling shows that she is not on top of her portfolio and the issues that arise in it.

“She has created a very public and unnecessary mess, and we haven’t seen an end to it yet.”