Adams Amy: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeAdams Amy: General Debate[Sitting date: 05 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16336. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment): I moveThat the House take note of miscellaneous business. What a week for David Cunliffe. What a week for the Artful Dodger over there the Leader of the Opposition. Let us see where he started the week. He started the week with poll numbers that frankly made the David Shearer days look like the golden age of Labour. If he thought that was a bad starting point it was all going to go from bad to worse for “Tricky” David Cunliffe.The question on everyone’s lips this week the question that everyone is trying to get their heads around is who is David Cunliffe? Who is he? Which of the many faces of David Cunliffe should we believe? Is it the “Politics of Envy” Leader of the Opposition who tried to tell New Zealand that he lived a very middle-of-the-road middle existence in his little doer-upper in the suburbs when of course it turns out that he is one of the very wealthy in New Zealand and lives in a mansion in what can only be described as one of the most exclusive suburbs? Is it “Mr Doublespeak” who promises to the unions that they can expect that they are on their way back to the good old days of the 1970s or is it the guy who turns up in front of the businesses and the boardrooms and promises that all will be all right under the free market Harvard graduate going back to Milton Friedman?No I do not think it is any of those. Perhaps it is “Devious Dave” who came out with his child payment policy and promised New Zealand that it would apply to nearly 60000 families and then had to quietly correct it to say: “Oh when I said 60000 I actually meant more like 30000. But it is all in the numbers—just a small error.” Interestingly enough he tried to blame staff for that one as well but he had to accept responsibility for that. Perhaps it is “Dodgy Dave” who New Zealand is now learning funnelled his donations through a secret trust. Is that not interesting? This is the same David Cunliffe who was part of the Labour Government that reformed the electoral finance laws in relation to donations and railed about transparency and honesty and accountability. But when it was his turn what was the advice he took? It was: “Let us have a secret trust so we don’t have to tell the public who is really backing us.” Is that not interesting?You have got Shane Jones who is quite prepared to be open with the public. Even Grant Robertson did not mind telling the public who was behind him. So what is it with David Cunliffe? Why is it that he could not be straight with New Zealand and tell them who was funding him? You have to wonder. Now he has come out and when a bit of pressure comes on he is prepared to name three of the donors. He was quite happy to take the money of the other two quite a substantial amount thousands and thousands of dollars—he was happy to take it—but now that the heat is on he would rather just give it all back and make it go away. Well I think New Zealand wants to know who they were. Who were they? Maybe it was Kim Dotcom. Maybe it was his union mates. How will we know? This doyen of transparency and reform of electoral finance law is now suddenly “Shady Dave”—“Shady Dave” who does not want to tell us anything. You have to say that since David Cunliffe became leader of the Labour Party it has been gaffes galore. It has been one shipwreck after another.That is only the start of them. Who remembers his electoral law breach during the by-election when David Cunliffe broke the electoral laws breached the rules and said “Oh sorry it was an error.”? We are hearing a lot of excuses. I think we have heard “It was an error.” “It was a mistake of judgment.” and “In hindsight it was a bad call.” We have heard “technical glitch” we have heard “oversight” and we have heard “That was my staff. I didn’t know it was happening.” Just this week he managed to throw one of his own MPs under the bus when he let them take the rap for his own office’s disclosureof draft policy to us. His own office disclosed the draft policy and he was quite happy to throw one of his MPs under the bus. So we can add another one: he is also “Disloyal Dave”. He is “Disloyal Dave” as well as everything else.He came out of course after the Grammys and congratulated Lorde. He could not spell her name right withdrew the congratulations and blamed it on an error. He could not get his CV right. That was a mistake all of that padding and stuff that he had forgotten he had not actually done. He copied Grant Robertson’s candidacy announcement—another glitch. He misled the public on Shane Jones’ stance in the leadership contest. I think the thing is this. What New Zealand knows is that if you cannot run a party and you cannot run your own affairs you sure cannot run a country. We do not want any part of “Tricky Dave”.