Health Minister Annette King today welcomed the re-emergence of Roger Sowry as National's health spokesperson, but wondered whether the health sector would be quite so pleased or amused.

"Mr Sowry has been an associate minister of health in the past. The health sector knows he had no liking for the job then, and had no desire even to try to absorb the huge amount of detail that is such a feature of the portfolio.

"However, Mrs Shipley has decided to 'do a re-soling and re-heeling job' on him, and we can just hope the shoes fit him better than they did before. I hope he shows he can contribute in a positive way to getting a decent and fair health service operating once again in this country.

"National promised last year that if changes were made to the health service, they wouldn't interfere with those changes, but would cooperate in making them work for the good of New Zealand.

"It will be interesting to see if Mr Sowry honours that commitment. His tired old style of operating does not create great optimism in that respect, but we will just have to wait and see."

© 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>>