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Home / New Zealand

10 things you didn't know about David Cunliffe

Phil Taylor
By Phil Taylor
Senior Writer·NZ Herald·
4 Jul, 2014 05:00 PMQuick Read

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Labour Leader David Cunliffe and wife Karen Price. Photo / Richard Robinson.

Labour Leader David Cunliffe and wife Karen Price. Photo / Richard Robinson.

1. He played Jesus in the school play.

2. His "little" brother, Stephen, is 6'7" and an expert on the Patagonian toothfish.

3. He has a half-brother and three half-sisters.

Read more:
• Unauthorised biography of David Cunliffe: The man who would be PM
• David Cunliffe:
Me and John Key

4. His great-grandfather married King Dick Seddon's sister.

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5. He helped his half-brother, Bill, through a life crisis.

6. He scared the pants off Michael Laws when they were at Uni together.

7. He caught a salmon in memory of his father at the spot on the Rangitata River where he died of a heart attack.

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8. He was voted most likely to be a world leader by fellow scholarship students at Atlantic College in Wales.

9. His father, a vicar, remarried eight months after the death of his first wife.

10. The William Cunliffe who died in the Brunner mine disaster of 1896 may be a relative.

Photos: David Cunliffe: The early years

Discover more

New Zealand|politics

The man who would be PM

04 Jul 05:00 PM
New Zealand|politics

David Cunliffe: Me and John Key

04 Jul 05:00 PM
New Zealand|politics

King Dick: supreme populist of God's Own

29 Aug 05:00 PM
Son of a preacher man. David with parents Bill and Barbara, Te Aroha, 1964
Brotherly love. David, 3, with 'little' brother Stephen, now 6'7". 1966.
David Cunliffe at Primary School in Te Kuiti.
David Cunliffe, the young poet.
Schoolboy rugby in Wales, during a scholarship 1980-1982 to United World College of the Atlantic.
Chilling out with the South Pacific mob, Atlantic College, Wales.
David Cunliffe coming in on the tide in an in-shore rescue boat that he helped build while on a scholarship in Wales, Atlantic College 1980-82.
David Cunliffe, aged 21, and Karen Price, aged 18, at Otago University.
David Cunliffe in his famous fishing hat that has travelled the world.
David Cunliffe, 1992, caught this fish just after his father died.
David and Karen at the New Zealand Embassy in Washington DC, 1992.
Harvard Graduate, a Master of Public Administration, 1995

Image 1 of 13: Son of a preacher man. David with parents Bill and Barbara, Te Aroha, 1964

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