Fakes crash Goff's Twitter party

Labour Party leader Phil Goff. Photo / Dean Purcell

Phil Goff turned up 20 minutes late to his own Twitter party and what was supposed to be a debate on policy descended into farce.

The Leader of the Opposition invited people to ask him any question they liked via Twitter and Facebook last night.

But among the serious questions were tweets from a fake Don Brash, a dodgy John Key, a Graham Henry imposter and a phony Mark Hotchin.

"I got some quite interesting responses. A lot of them very sane questions and the occasional oddball one," Mr Goff said.

One person asked him whether he would instruct a Navy frigate to fire a missile at the Wellywood sign, to which he replied: "Tempting".

"It all was a bit of light-hearted fun," he said.

The fake Henry asked for a knighthood if the All Blacks won the World Cup and the fake Dr Brash wanted to know if Mr Goff would go to the Act Party ball with him.

Mr Goff politely declined to respond to many of the tweets but said Henry would be "benighted" if he didn't win the cup.

Mr Goff said the reason he was about 20 minutes late to last night's Twitter session was because the one he held on Facebook ran over time.

"That's the way life goes around here. I had appointments that started at 6.50am and they're still going at night - that's the life of a politician," he said.

Mr Goff has conducted live question and answer sessions on Facebook before but last night was the first time he had used Twitter. He said he intended to do it more regularly.

SMALL TALK

SirGrahamHenry (parody account):

Will I get a knighthood if we win the #Rugby World Cup? #Goffchat

Phil Goff:

@SirGrahamHenry #goffchat You'll be benighted if you don't!

Spudlabour Spud:

#Goffchat - If you could be any kind of action figure what would it be?

Phil Goff:

@Spudlabour #goffchat Not Ken or Barbie!

dpfdpf:

If elected PM will you instruct a Navy frigate to fire a missile at the #wellywood sign? #goffchat

Phil Goff:

@dpfdpf #goffchat Tempting!