What Mr Brash said yesterday at the Knowledge Wave Conference was so blindingly obvious that his speech should have been described as boring and predictable. Instead it is met with anger and outrage. In a country which purportedly upholds free speech the truth is, thanks to that scourge call "political correctness", there exists a self- imposed censorship and woe betide anyone who fails to observe it.

Mr Brash pointed out that we have more than 350,000 working age New Zealanders on income support. This is 60,000 more than when unemployment reached it's peak. This seeming conundrum exists because the true unemployment rate is masked by the DPB. Mr Brash is onto this and went on to suggest what measures might be taken to get people into work.

He was then pilloried for stepping outside of his jurisdiction, for not sticking to his job as Reserve Bank Governor. Perhaps Mr Brash feels the need to step into the breach created by our current bunch of lily-livered liberals who are not doing their jobs. Perhaps Mr Brash is concerned that Mr Maharey is about to throw millions more at the DPB problem. God knows, enough of us are.

Let's all take a leaf out of Mr Brash's book and stand up and say so.

Lindsay Mitchell Campaigners for the Abolition of the DPB

ph/fx 04 562 7944 e-mail dandl.mitchell@clear.net.nz

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