Newshub can reveal Judith Collins has been forced to rush out her party's law and order policy after accidentally sending it to a senior government minister - who also happens to be Labour's campaign chair.
Regardless Collins came out swinging, calling the Government soft and pathetic and pushing a repackaged version of its previous policy - Strike Force Raptor.
Collins was at a town meeting in Taupo on Tuesday, promising to keep COVID-19 out to save National voters' lives.
"I certainly don't want to kill off most of our voters, thank you very much," she said to the audience of mostly retirees.
Collins used her appearance to deliver her specialty: a feast of insults.
She described the Government's failed light rail project as "very, very light, like a cloud floating in the air", mocked Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis as a politician she would "not put in charge of a lolly shop", and blasted Labour's "soft, pathetic approach to law and order".
National's promising a different approach, still planning to ban gang patches but also promising to:
- Expand mental health programmes within police
- Increase border searches for drugs
- Expand the drug courts and
- Create a fund to help former prisoners move when they are released
- And Strike Force Raptor is back - a specialised squad of police targeting gangs.
The name, which was proudly paraded by former leader Simon Bridges but also roundly mocked, has been shed in favour of something a little more simple.
"We use very plain language here in the National Party - it is the gang unit," Collins announced.
The policy wasn't the only one released on Tuesday.
After her Taupo announcement, Collins then drove to Tirau for a second announcement - promises of two new national parks, one in the Coromandel and one in the Catlins, though they were completely overshadowed by the law and order announcement.
Collins said the law and order announcement came on Tuesday because people had been asking for it.
But Newshub understands National had mistakenly dished it out to people who didn't ask for it - namely Megan Woods, Labour's campaign chair, in an email intended for National’s chief of staff Megan Campbell. Wood's office confirmed to Newshub a document was received in error - and deleted.
