Election 2020: 'Fake news'? National Party leader Judith Collins needs to rein in her renegade MPs - comment

National Party leader Judith Collins needs to get tough on her rogue MPs, writes Jason Walls. Photo / Warren Buckland

COMMENT:

National Party leader Judith Collins has a problem on her hands – some of her candidates are going rogue in the wild west that is social media.

And the longer she takes to pull her renegade MPs into line, the more she risks jeopardising National's campaign for what she has described as the "most important election in generations".

Over the past few days, her MPs have been deliberately reposting fake quotes about their opponent, Jacinda Ardern, and doubling down when they are called out.

After the leaders' debate on Monday night, Northland candidate and MP Matt King shared an attack post on Facebook made by a National Party-aligned meme page.

The post contained a false quote attributed to Ardern: "Dairy farming is a world of the past".

What she actually said was: "If I may, that feels like the view of the world that has passed," in response to Collins saying that dairy farmers felt "picked on" over their environmental record.

The fact he has been using a fake quote has been pointed out to King, and to the page promoting the fake quote.

But four days later it's still up.

Worse still are the shocking comments of National's Whanganui candidate, and sitting MP, Harete Hipango, who also shared the image.

When questioned about the quote, she refused to back down.

"It is not a false quote, as it is not a quote," she told the Whanganui Chronicle.

"It is a construction of key words aligned with Jacinda Ardern," Hipango said.

This is despite saying in a Facebook post where she shared the image: "This is what the PM really thinks of our dairy farmers. She said it!"

Hipango is National's shadow Attorney-General.

Whanganui MP Harete Hipango. Photo / Bevan Conley

Clearly, she is trying to save face - the post is still live on her Facebook page.

Worse still, in a separate post she doubled down: "Nowadays it seems any views is [sic] fake news (if others don't agree)," she said in a follow-up post about the Wanganui Chronicle's story.

She then goes on to take aim at the reporter who wrote the story for not reporting that she allegedly intervened in a street brawl to "prevent a stabbing".

She then came up with her own headline for that apparent story: "Local MP in local street brawl - halts a stabbing".

This is not the first time Hipango has been stung for her use of social media.

Earlier this year, she accused Ardern of supporting abortions to full-term in a Facebook post – this was proved to be greatly misleading and Ardern suggested Hipango's view was not "based on facts".

Hipango, and some of the other more active social media users in National's caucus, are a problem for Collins.

Instead of pushing out her message that National is the party of farmers and Labour can't be trusted on agricultural issues, she has been forced to put out these sorts of fires.

And much like a fire, it steals the oxygen around it – in this case, coverage and questions about National's policy.

Hipango needs to be reined in fast and Collins needs to send a strong message to the rest of her caucus that this type of behaviour is not acceptable.

But, speaking to media this afternoon, Collins refused to do this.

She said she hadn't talked to Hipango about the posts and consistently deflected questions back to her talking points relating to Ardern.

That is until she said, of the MPs' posts, 'I think they are genuinely reflecting what they believe.'