The wrong cabbage boat quote

As many will have seen, Massey University is running a competition for best quote of 2012. One of the more well publicised finalists is:

I did not come up the river on a cabbage boat. (John Banks responding to media questions about Dotcom.)

There’s just one problem with that quote. It’s wrong. The actual quote by John Banks was:

I think you think I came up the river on a cabbage boat.

Now if this was just a news story, it wouldn’t matter. But if you are running a quote of the year competition, you’d think you’d check the quote was in fact an accurate quote.

Now as Toby Manhire has blogged, Banks has referred to cabbage boats many times, as far back as 1999. He did once say “I didn’t come up the river on a cabbage boat.” but that was in 2011, and in response to the extraordinary policy gains ACT managed in the coalition negotiations.