Voters in the Papakura electorate of Justice Minister Judith Collins say they have had their faith shaken in the wake of revelations she passed a public servant's information to a blogger.
Previously, Prime Minister John Key was downplaying the allegations against Ms Collins, but yesterday his tone changed and both he and deputy Bill English distanced themselves from Ms Collins's actions.
Nicky Hagar's book Dirty Politics outlines how Ms Collins passed to right-wing blogger Cameron Slater the name and phone number of a public servant she suspected of leaking ministerial information to the Labour Party.
The public servant, Simon Pleasants, was subsequently criticised on the Whale Oil blog and received death threats.
Mr Key accepted Ms Collins stance that Mr Slater already knew Mr Pleasants' name but said it was still unwise to hand over the information.
But he said he would not fire her as the incident happened five years ago, and Ms Collins says the person's identity was already known to the blogger.
Voters in Ms Collins' electorate of Papakura told Radio New Zealand yesterday the revelations were harmful to the National Party's image.