David Cunliffe

David Richard Cunliffe (born 30 April 1963) is a New Zealand management consultant and former politician who was Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from September 2013 to September 2014. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Titirangi and then New Lynn for the Labour Party between 1999 and 2017. He served as the Minister of Health, Minister for Communications and Information Technology and Minister of Immigration for the Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand from October 2007 until November 2008. After the defeat of the Labour Party in the 2008 general election, and the resignation of Helen Clark as the party leader, Cunliffe was appointed the party's finance spokesman and number three on the front bench. After Labour lost the 2011 general election and Phil Goff stood down as party leader, Cunliffe ran for the leadership, but narrowly lost to David Shearer. On 26 August 2013, Cunliffe announced a second leadership bid after David Shearer's departure from the leadership and was elected on 15 September 2013. Following Labour's defeat at the general election in September 2014, he resigned as leader of the Labour Party. Early life Cunliffe was born in Te Aroha on 30 April 1963. His family moved to Te Kūiti, then to Pleasant Point. His father, Bill, an Anglican minister, was active in the Labour Party. As a teenager he won a scholarship to study the International Baccalaureate at the United World College of the Atlantic in Wales. Cunliffe studied politics at the University of Otago, where he was a member of the Otago University Debating Society, and gained a BA with first-class honours. He worked as a diplomat from 1987 to 1994 and gained a Diploma in Social Sciences (Distinction) in economics from Massey University in 1993. He was a Fulbright Scholar and Kennedy Memorial Fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, including some courses at Harvard Business and Law School in 1994 and 1995, earning a Master of Public Administration. He worked as a management consultant with The Boston Consulting Group in Auckland from 1995 to 1999.