Last Tuesday night, Duncan Garner tweeted:
Good source. Coup on in Labour. Letter of no confidence being circulated. It's over for Shearer. Watch for his resignation.
— Duncan Garner (@Garner_Live) July 9, 2013
Duncan Garner's claims turned out to be completely untrue, with the entire Labour caucus being contacted by Grant Robertson to see if there was any validity to the claims.
@Garner_Live Duncan, I have now confirmed with the whole Caucus. There is no letter. This is just made up. Apology?
— Grant Robertson (@grantrobertson1) July 9, 2013
Clearly there was no letter, even though Duncan Garner had claimed Patrick Gower already had the letter in his possession and was going to give a report about it on TV3's Nightline.
@chrishipkins @Garner_Live Garner has just said on Radio Live that @patrickgowernz has the letter and will show it on Nightline TV3.
— Julie Fairey (@juliefairey) July 9, 2013
This also turned out to be completely untrue, with no report on Nightline by Patrick Gower. Apart from a small tweet to refute the claim, Gower has chosen not to comment about the embarrassing debacle, probably hoping that Garners' bullshit doesn't rub off on him. Garner then tweeted:
Gower not on nightline... labour MPs denying letter of course... Text book coup, 60 day warning, man ban, letter, denials, denials, gone.
— Duncan Garner (@Garner_Live) July 9, 2013
You've got to wonder if Garner was drunk? The hack had claimed it was his source within Labour that told him Gower had the coup letter, obviously trying to shift blame. In my opinion, a proper journalist would have contacted Patrick Gower to confirm he had the letter before reporting it as fact.
So either Garner has a completely unreliable source who claimed Gower had the letter and was going to report on it (unlikely) or Duncan is making shit up, which considering his previous misconduct is far more conceivable.
Now some have speculated that Garner had been given the wrong end of the stick so to speak to make him look foolish. However if that was the case, you'd think Garner would be furious. It's his credibility that's on the line after all.
Interestingly he doesn't seem to give a damn, with Garner continuing to perpetuate the lie on his RadioLive program and on Twitter, even when it has been completely disproved. After four days of waiting for this coup that was meant to be happening on Tuesday, I think it's safe to say no coup exists, and Duncan Garner was simply lying in order to try and destabilize Labour.
In my opinion, Duncan Garner doesn't have the right to call himself a journalist. Instead he should be called an asshole, because that's what he is.
