Auckland Chamber of Commerce

“Australia’s new company tax benchmarks sets New Zealand election challenge!”

New Zealand must give urgency to match and better Australia’s new company tax rates.

Responding to news from Canberra that Australia will cut the corporate tax rate from 36c to 34c next year and then to 30c by 2002, Michael Barnett, Auckland Chamber Chief Executive said it is imperative that New Zealand “beats the Australian challenge by offering a more internationally competitive rate.”

For some time the Chamber of Commerce had been urging Government to set a bold target to reduce taxes to around 25%. “This would give business certainty, stop more businesses moving to Australia and provide a benchmark for attracting new investment and businesses to locate here.”

It is absolutely critical that the National-led Government responds to this latest Australian challenge by moving ahead immediately with a bold tax cut, and reinforces the stupidity of Labour’s proposals to lift taxes should it win the upcoming election.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>