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Thursday, September 7, 2023

Peter Williams: James Shaw (not) BA


Greens co-leader telling porkies about his academic record

The thing about politicians is that you have to be able to trust them, and to gain trust it helps if they tell the truth about their life and times and background before they went into politics.

For some bizarre reason James Shaw, Minister for Climate Change and co-leader of the Green Party, is telling the world through social media network LinkedIn that he has a BA from Victoria University.

But he has previously told the Otago University student magazine Critic that he didn’t finish his degree before he went off to England in the late 1990s. So he is putting about that he has an undergraduate degree which he has admitted is not the truth.

To quote from Critic, “I never actually got my undergrad.”

It is technically a crime to claim that you have an academic qualification that you don’t have. Others have lost jobs or positions for making such claims.

A staffer at James Shaw’s office has now confirmed that James Shaw does not have a BA from Victoria University. So why is it still on his Linked In page? That is demonstrably false information. If we can’t trust him with his academic qualifications, what else can we not trust him on?

The answer to that, of course, is plenty.

He also says on LinkedIn that he co-founded an outfit in the UK called Future Considerations and that he was a shareholder in it. The only problem is that on his CV he says he started working for Future Considerations in 2005. The company was founded in 2002.

Shaw said in his maiden speech Parliament in 2014 that he worked at Future Considerations, “an organisational development company I helped to establish.”

So the question is – did he mislead Parliament from as early as his maiden speech?

The thing about these issues is that Ian Wishart of Investigate magazine has been writing about them on Twitter for over a week. Nobody in the mainstream media has bothered to follow up the story, no questions have been asked, and there’s been no response from Shaw or the Greens to the thread on Twitter.

If this was David Seymour or Chris Luxon – or Ben Uffindell - with some palpably false information on their LinkedIn CV do you think the media would let that sleep?

Who says our media don’t love and protect the left?

Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack - where this article was sourced.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Peter, that's really interesting. Given you background I'm going to trust that your piece is correct. Given that the media does not want to promote this again indicates that you are correct and the far left media....or this govts propaganda arm are doing everything they can to get this destructive lot back in again. However they haven't allowed for the good decent ppl (well at least those that are left in this poor country) who are now standing up to this lunacy and saying enough is enough. Keep fighting the good fight Peter. These guys despise you for telling the truth. Isn't that fantastic.

Doug Longmire said...

Very interesting, Peter.
Proof that James Shaw does not actually deal in facts, only fiction.

DeeM said...

Hold on Peter. Maybe his BA doesn't stand for Bachelor of Arts. Maybe it stands for Bloody Awful. Now that is a title he has earned and should wear with pride.

Even if he is James Shaw - Bloody Awful, he has still lied extensively about climate change so your calling him out for being economical with the truth still holds.

Anonymous said...

For those who read this article and ponder - it was also covered by Sean Plunket on The Platform (you can find the video on The Platform website).

It is sad the NZ Green Party have some "less than serious thinkers", within the Parliamentary Ranks and that label can be applied to the "glitterati within the NZ Public" that have supported this style of Politics since The Values Party (1972 -1990) that then became Green Party of (Aoteroa) New Zealand.

Thus 'being labeled - less than serious thinkers', one can then "assume that (for them) that Truth does not matter!

I find our NZ Green Party an interesting group (sorry about that) - but when you consider just where the Green Party started (not NZ) and who it was associated with (think Country), the Mantra & Policies they both established, followed and introduced, then (and to some extent still do), and the impact they had on European Nations - was a little more "vigorous" than what "our current Green MP's" even contemplate & or do.

Oh, Sir Robert Jones has made a "commentary" thru this domain - Breaking Views.co.nz - on the green party and one can safely assume, that he is not impressed with them at all. The rest of NZ should follow suit.

ANON, of New Zealand

Anonymous said...

His Linked In profile says he did NOT complete a BA.