Latest news with #JessCollins
Daily Mail
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Tense moment Ex-Senator slams colleague over embarrassing leaked email
A former Liberal Senator has lashed out at her own party following the leak of an email from a newly elected colleague, who had asked members not to leak internal discussions. The email, sent by Senator Jess Collins and made public on Thursday, reveals her staunch opposition to gender quotas and her frustrations with internal party divisions. In the message, Collins argues quotas are unnecessary, insisting that candidates should be chosen on merit. She points to the NSW State Liberals who achieved gender parity without any formal mandates. Collins also takes aim at 'factional hacks' she claims are clinging to power within the party. Appearing on Sky News, former Senator Hollie Hughes, who lost her seat to Collins in the 2024 preselection, did not hold back. Hughes said she received a flurry of messages that morning about Collins' 'please don't leak' email, with most people mocking it. Hughes said, noting her 'surprise' that the message focused on internal matters rather than holding the Albanese Government to account. Hughes mentions that it was peculiar that Collins ran on a platform of foreign affairs expertise, but made no mention foreign policy in the email. Listing her own work on Senate committees and shadow portfolios, Hughes questioned how Collins' campaign for 'merit-based' selection stacked up. 'I'm not sure how I missed out on that when it came to merit' Hughes said. Hughes then slammed Collins over her role in unseating her during the preselection battle. 'What gave me a chuckle, when a woman knocks off a sitting female Senator in shadow portfolios and claims, A. Merit, and B. 'I'm supporting women',' she said. During a panel discussion, journalist Joe Hildebrand asked how Collins was preselected, and whether factional support played a role. Hughes responded with a sarcastic jab, 'How did she get there?' she said, before bursting out laughing. 'Honey, so what happens is, everyone else is a big bad faction. But my faction isn't a faction. I got elected because I was amazing,' Hughes said, mimicking Collins in a mocking tone. Collins had the backing of the Liberal Party's Right faction, led federally by former Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor, who unsuccessfully challenged Sussan Ley for the leadership. Hughes, who supported Ley in the leadership vote, was backed by the Centre-Right faction led by NSW powerbroker Alex Hawke. Hughes wished Collins well in the future, and said she hoped Collins learned from the email debacle. 'I know that you don't send an email with please don't leak this, that's like flagging a red rag to a bull'. A review into the Liberal Party's devastating election loss is underway, with a second probe ordered by leader Sussan Ley to confront the deeper, existential challenges threatening the party's future. Parliament will sit for the first time since the election on July 22.
Sydney Morning Herald
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Please don't leak': New Liberal senator's email missive to party colleagues
The Liberal Party's class of 2025 is ready to take on the Albanese Labor government. But first, they have a bit more fighting among themselves to get through. New NSW senator Jess Collins marked the first day of her term on Tuesday by sending out a lengthy email missive to party delegates containing a few gags, and a few more barely disguised swipes at factional rivals. Bold. In fact, 'Labor' only appeared once. 'I am tired of factional hacks trying to weaponise the Constitution to consolidate or hold on to power,' she said. 'We are not going to find our way out of the wilderness if we can't change the status quo.' Collins entered the upper house after knocking off sitting senator Hollie Hughes in a tough preselection fight last year, thanks in part to support from conservative frontbencher Angus Taylor, whom she thanked in her email missive. The new senator also had intriguing words on the foot-in-mouth comments made last month by party elder Alan Stockdale, who said that Liberal women were so 'sufficiently assertive' that the party might need quotas for men. But not about what he actually said. Loading 'I was disappointed that comments made by Alan Stockdale were leaked to the press,' she said. 'That very afternoon I had just spent two hours with Alan and the Administrative Committee telling them how to improve the outcomes for women. If he suggested women were sufficiently assertive perhaps I am to blame. (Sorry, bad joke – please don't leak it!).'
The Guardian
02-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Gender balance in Liberal party should be based on ‘merit' not ‘quotas', says new senator Jess Collins
Newly elected Liberal senator Jess Collins has hit out at factional bosses and leakers within the party's NSW branch, insisting a push for quotas to boost female representation is the wrong approach for trying to beat Labor at the next election. Aligned with senior frontbencher Angus Taylor and state MP and factional force Anthony Roberts, Collins was elected to the upper house on 3 May, after beating senator Hollie Hughes for preselection. A former Lowy Institute research fellow, Collins used an email to constituents on Tuesday night to describe the Coalition's election defeat as 'devastating,' arguing more women would have been elected if campaign strategists and former leader Peter Dutton had done a better job. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email As Dutton's successor Sussan Ley pushes for reform of the party, and some moderates advocate for binding quotas, Collins criticised leakers who publicised comments from party figure Alan Stockdale suggesting Liberal women were 'sufficiently assertive' and that quotas for men might need to be considered. 'I am tired of factional hacks trying to weaponise the constitution to consolidate or hold on to power,' Collins wrote in the email seen by Guardian Australia. 'We are not going to find our way out of the wilderness if we can't change the status quo.' She said the leaking of the comments made in a meeting of the NSW Women's Council was disappointing, explaining she had met Stockdale and the party's administrative committee with ideas on how to improve the outcomes for women. 'If he suggested women were sufficiently assertive perhaps I am to blame.' Collins then wrote: 'Sorry, bad joke – please don't leak it!' The only newly elected Coalition senator, she conceded she was so low on the pecking order that she has 'no one to peck'. Ahead of a discussion about quota models in a special meeting on Wednesday night, Collins said there was more work to do to encourage women to run for parliament. 'That is the ongoing and big task ahead of us all. I was fortunate to have mentors like Anthony Roberts and Angus Taylor. 'If I can help other women like they have helped me then I'm confident we can achieve gender balance with merit in parliament. Not with quotas.' Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Party activist Charlotte Mortlock, founder of Hilma's Network which advocates for better female representation in the Liberal party, said quotas should be considered. 'I look forward to Jess' contribution to our democracy. I am sure she will do a great job, but I disagree with her on quotas. 'I am frustrated by the continual use of the word 'merit' which never seems to come up when questioning men's capabilities.' Moderates pushing for changes to party rules have proposed gender quotas be introduced with enforceable expiry dates, in a bid to win the broadest possible support for the plan. Proponents of quotas told Guardian Australia this week sunset provisions to remove preferential treatment for women must be included in any rule change. Party sources say a shift in sentiment could be emerging towards a quota plan, provided the right model can be agreed to. A rule change would require 60% support in a vote of the NSW state council. Taylor opposes quotas. He said on Wednesday he would actively campaign on 'sensible policies in line with Liberal values' to get more women into parliament.
Yahoo
15-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Looking for financial independence? Follow 'The Simple Path.'
Author and blogger JL Collins's book 'The Simple Path to Wealth: Your Road Map to Financial Independence and a Rich, Free Life' was published in 2016 and has since sold more than 1 million copies. It's hands-down one of my favorite investing books. Drumroll. He has now returned with a second edition of the book, which his daughter, Jess, collaborated on. I asked Collins to share some insights. Here are edited excerpts of our conversation. What has changed since your first edition in terms of your philosophy? Anything you tweaked in this new edition? JL Collins: Nothing. Zero. I designed the simple path to wealth to be something that you implement over decades. If it were to require major modification after a single 10-year period, I would not have designed it very well. The basic philosophy is the same, and that's important. What has changed is all the little details — the government regulations around income limits for investing in 401(k)s and the amount of money you can put in individual retirement accounts and all that kind of stuff. You kick off the book with your three key principles. Can you share? Avoid debt, live on less than you earn, and invest the surplus — if you're following my simple path, you'll be doing that in low-cost index funds. Avoiding debt, or getting out of it... is critical. You can never achieve financial independence if you're dragging that particular ball and chain around. I'm a little appalled that in our culture, carrying debt has become (so) normalized that people sort of assume, well, of course I'm going to borrow money to buy this, that, or, or the other thing. How should we spend our money? Spend money on what is most valuable to you. For me, there is nothing more valuable than buying my freedom, my freedom of time, my freedom of choice. You do that by having money and investments that ultimately pay all of your expenses. How do you define financial independence? How is your approach aligned with the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) movement? I love the FIRE acronym. It's very clever, and it's a great goal if that's your goal. Retiring early was never my goal. I like working. My goal was, and is, to have enough money to allow me to make bolder choices. Being financially independent means that you have enough money invested to throw off enough to cover all of your expenses and then some — a little bit of a cushion. You write that 25 times your annual expenses is the amount you need to be financially independent. Explain. There is the concept of what's called the 4% rule. And what the 4% rule suggests, and I think it's a great guideline, is that when you have enough money invested, that 4% of it will cover all of your expenses. Let's suppose that you have a million dollars invested. Well, that throws off at 4%, $40,000 a year. So if you can live on $40,000 a year comfortably, you are now financially independent. If you need $100,000, you multiply it by 25, you'd be at $2.5 million. You advocate saving 50% of your income if you want to become financially independent. Isn't that a tad unrealistic for most people? This is one of the things I probably get the most pushback on because, well, it depends on how you construct your lifestyle. And I'm sympathetic to people who feel that way, but there are people who are doing it very successfully. The more you can set aside, the greater the percentage, the shorter your journey will be to get to that financial independence thing. You are all in on owning stocks, but what advice or do you have for people when it comes to dealing with rocky uncertainty in markets? The single thing that determines whether the market will make you wealthy or leave you bleeding at the side of the road is what you do when it drops. Because market corrections, which are 10% and bear markets, which are 20%, are all normal. They are to be expected. If you're going to be investing in the stock market, you have to be prepared for those things to happen. And they are unpredictable in spite of all the people out there who are claiming they can predict it. I've been doing this for 50 years, and the answer to what do you do when you know these things are going to come and you can't predict them? Well, you just stay the course. You don't panic and sell, which is the worst thing you can do because that will leave you bleeding at the side of the road. And not only do you stay the course, but if you're building your wealth, and you've been adding money on a regular basis, which is what the simple path calls for, these things are a blessing because now you're accumulating those shares at a lower cost. Read more: How to protect your money during stock market volatility What's your ideal investment strategy? This is the simple path to wealth. It's not only easier, but it's also more powerful. So when you're building your wealth, you hold one index fund, and in my case, that's Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index Fund. The key thing is it's a total stock market index fund. And caveat here is I hear from people all the time who say, you know, I'm at Fidelity, or I'm at Schwab and they have total stock market index funds. Are those okay? The answer to that question is, yes, those are fine. You own virtually every publicly traded company in the United States of America, and everybody from the factory floor to the CEO is now working to make you richer. That keeps me warm and comfortable at night when I go to sleep. When you stop having earned income to flow into that total stock market index fund, then you want to add a bond fund. And in my case, that's Vanguard's Total Bond Market Index Fund. I also hold some money in a money market fund. Frequently people will go to their 401(k) and they won't find a total stock market index fund, but they will find an S&P 500 fund, those are fine. Read more: 12 money market accounts with interest rates of 4% APY and higher What about the international angle? I'm a little bit alone in this position. I simply don't see the need because those largest companies... which make up the bulk of my total stock market index fund, are by definition international companies. An enormous amount of their sales and profit comes from all over the your take on target-date funds? They are the primary investment vehicle for people in employer retirement plans these days. They're effective. One of these target-date retirement funds is a great way to go. That fund will handle all of the rebalancing when it comes time for adding bonds. For those people who want ultimate simplicity, you never have to think about it at all. I don't think it's going to perform quite as well which is why I don't personally use it, and by the way, it will give you that international exposure. What's your take on crypto creeping into investment portfolios as well as private equity and such? Still stick with the index funds? I'm not a fan of the multiple income stream school of investing. Simple is better. So no cattle, gold, annuities, crypto, or the like. For the most part, so far, cryptocurrencies are a speculation. Sometimes speculations work out very well, often these speculations don't work out. That's what makes them speculations. I'm not a speculator. I'm an investor. An investor buys assets that have operations that can generate cash and growth — stock in a company or rental real estate, for example. Such things grow in value because of the underlying activities that earn money. Kerry Hannon is a Senior Columnist at Yahoo Finance. She is a career and retirement strategist and the author of 14 books, including the forthcoming "Retirement Bites: A Gen X Guide to Securing Your Financial Future," "In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in the New World of Work" and "Never Too Old to Get Rich." Follow her on Bluesky. Sign up for the Mind Your Money newsletter
Yahoo
15-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Looking for financial independence? Follow 'The Simple Path.'
Author and blogger JL Collins's book 'The Simple Path to Wealth: Your Road Map to Financial Independence and a Rich, Free Life' was published in 2016 and has since sold more than 1 million copies. It's hands-down one of my favorite investing books. Drumroll. He has now returned with a second edition of the book, which his daughter, Jess, collaborated on. I asked Collins to share some insights. Here are edited excerpts of our conversation. What has changed since your first edition in terms of your philosophy? Anything you tweaked in this new edition? JL Collins: Nothing. Zero. I designed the simple path to wealth to be something that you implement over decades. If it were to require major modification after a single 10-year period, I would not have designed it very well. The basic philosophy is the same, and that's important. What has changed is all the little details — the government regulations around income limits for investing in 401(k)s and the amount of money you can put in individual retirement accounts and all that kind of stuff. You kick off the book with your three key principles. Can you share? Avoid debt, live on less than you earn, and invest the surplus — if you're following my simple path, you'll be doing that in low-cost index funds. Avoiding debt, or getting out of it... is critical. You can never achieve financial independence if you're dragging that particular ball and chain around. I'm a little appalled that in our culture, carrying debt has become (so) normalized that people sort of assume, well, of course I'm going to borrow money to buy this, that, or, or the other thing. How should we spend our money? Spend money on what is most valuable to you. For me, there is nothing more valuable than buying my freedom, my freedom of time, my freedom of choice. You do that by having money and investments that ultimately pay all of your expenses. How do you define financial independence? How is your approach aligned with the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) movement? I love the FIRE acronym. It's very clever, and it's a great goal if that's your goal. Retiring early was never my goal. I like working. My goal was, and is, to have enough money to allow me to make bolder choices. Being financially independent means that you have enough money invested to throw off enough to cover all of your expenses and then some — a little bit of a cushion. You write that 25 times your annual expenses is the amount you need to be financially independent. Explain. There is the concept of what's called the 4% rule. And what the 4% rule suggests, and I think it's a great guideline, is that when you have enough money invested, that 4% of it will cover all of your expenses. Let's suppose that you have a million dollars invested. Well, that throws off at 4%, $40,000 a year. So if you can live on $40,000 a year comfortably, you are now financially independent. If you need $100,000, you multiply it by 25, you'd be at $2.5 million. You advocate saving 50% of your income if you want to become financially independent. Isn't that a tad unrealistic for most people? This is one of the things I probably get the most pushback on because, well, it depends on how you construct your lifestyle. And I'm sympathetic to people who feel that way, but there are people who are doing it very successfully. The more you can set aside, the greater the percentage, the shorter your journey will be to get to that financial independence thing. You are all in on owning stocks, but what advice or do you have for people when it comes to dealing with rocky uncertainty in markets? The single thing that determines whether the market will make you wealthy or leave you bleeding at the side of the road is what you do when it drops. Because market corrections, which are 10% and bear markets, which are 20%, are all normal. They are to be expected. If you're going to be investing in the stock market, you have to be prepared for those things to happen. And they are unpredictable in spite of all the people out there who are claiming they can predict it. I've been doing this for 50 years, and the answer to what do you do when you know these things are going to come and you can't predict them? Well, you just stay the course. You don't panic and sell, which is the worst thing you can do because that will leave you bleeding at the side of the road. And not only do you stay the course, but if you're building your wealth, and you've been adding money on a regular basis, which is what the simple path calls for, these things are a blessing because now you're accumulating those shares at a lower cost. Read more: How to protect your money during stock market volatility What's your ideal investment strategy? This is the simple path to wealth. It's not only easier, but it's also more powerful. So when you're building your wealth, you hold one index fund, and in my case, that's Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index Fund. The key thing is it's a total stock market index fund. And caveat here is I hear from people all the time who say, you know, I'm at Fidelity, or I'm at Schwab and they have total stock market index funds. Are those okay? The answer to that question is, yes, those are fine. You own virtually every publicly traded company in the United States of America, and everybody from the factory floor to the CEO is now working to make you richer. That keeps me warm and comfortable at night when I go to sleep. When you stop having earned income to flow into that total stock market index fund, then you want to add a bond fund. And in my case, that's Vanguard's Total Bond Market Index Fund. I also hold some money in a money market fund. Frequently people will go to their 401(k) and they won't find a total stock market index fund, but they will find an S&P 500 fund, those are fine. Read more: 12 money market accounts with interest rates of 4% APY and higher What about the international angle? I'm a little bit alone in this position. I simply don't see the need because those largest companies... which make up the bulk of my total stock market index fund, are by definition international companies. An enormous amount of their sales and profit comes from all over the subscribing, you are agreeing to Yahoo's Terms and Privacy Policy What's your take on target-date funds? They are the primary investment vehicle for people in employer retirement plans these days. They're effective. One of these target-date retirement funds is a great way to go. That fund will handle all of the rebalancing when it comes time for adding bonds. For those people who want ultimate simplicity, you never have to think about it at all. I don't think it's going to perform quite as well which is why I don't personally use it, and by the way, it will give you that international exposure. What's your take on crypto creeping into investment portfolios as well as private equity and such? Still stick with the index funds? I'm not a fan of the multiple income stream school of investing. Simple is better. So no cattle, gold, annuities, crypto, or the like. For the most part, so far, cryptocurrencies are a speculation. Sometimes speculations work out very well, often these speculations don't work out. That's what makes them speculations. I'm not a speculator. I'm an investor. An investor buys assets that have operations that can generate cash and growth — stock in a company or rental real estate, for example. Such things grow in value because of the underlying activities that earn money. Kerry Hannon is a Senior Columnist at Yahoo Finance. She is a career and retirement strategist and the author of 14 books, including the forthcoming "Retirement Bites: A Gen X Guide to Securing Your Financial Future," "In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in the New World of Work" and "Never Too Old to Get Rich." Follow her on Bluesky. Sign up for the Mind Your Money newsletter
