Judith Collins backs 'great leader' Helen Clark for top UN job

Judith Collins continues to use her Sunday Star Times column as a platform for her rehabilitation campaign.

The latest instalment sees Ms Collins back Helen Clark for UN secretary-general.

"She's a great leader," she writes of Ms Clark, noting the former PM united a factious Labour caucus. 

"Secondly, she is a New Zealander. We are proud of Helen Clark and her work .... Thirdly, no woman has ever led the UN. Clearly, it's time to change."

"Crusher" Collins, as she has become known in recent years, would never in the past have been big enough to cast domestic politics aside and back a political rival, as a compatriot, for an international post – let alone with overtones of feminism and, shock-horror, affirmative action.

On Friday night, she kept her humour during a cameo on TV3's Seven Days, and even held her tongue when asked if there was a smear of Whaleoil on her face.

And earlier in the week, she chastised TVNZ for showing too many women "in lesser roles" – a criticism that was more Clare Curran than Crusher.

The former justice minister is making a decent fist of her bid to re-invent herself. 

That leaves John Key with a dilemma: should he let Kindler, Gentler Judith back into cabinet next time a spot opens up?

Ms Collins has been disciplined in her campaign to be more centralist and likeable. But will it stick once she's back around the Big Table? And is there a bigger agenda at play? (Read: a leadership bid after Mr Key decides to retire, or pulls one too many ponytails. Just as John Key puts his foot in it with the women voters who have been so central to National's re-election, here comes Judith, demanding TVNZ promote its blondes and the UN its brunette).

And although an inquiry led by Justice Lester Chisholm, cleared her of allegations she colluded in a smear campaign former SFO boss Adam Feeley, and no official allegations of impropriety over Oravida, opposition parties are likely to gleefully remind the government of both controversies and renew their needling.

But the bigger obstacle will be that although the voting public might forget Ms Collins' less-hinged moments of 2015, the PM is unlikely to – especially her hostility as her "Honourable" title was put on hold and, earlier, her failure to keep it together under pressure. Is there room for a second chance in the Key administration? Maybe but not for someone with sneaky leadership aspirations.