ACT Finance Spokesman Rodney Hide said today that Finance Minister Michael Cullen should start practising what he preaches on savings.

“Here’s a Minister complaining about New Zealanders not saving when he has gone and hiked taxes, increased government spending by $5.9 billion, and seriously reduced New Zealanders’ ability to save.

“The Minister should start by getting government spending under control, lowering taxes on working New Zealanders so that they can afford to save, and by applying the available surpluses to repaying Government debt.

“Michael Cullen’s speech to the Financial Planners Seminar was yet another case of this government saying, ‘do what I say, not as I do’.

“The interest bill on the Government’s debt amounts to $13 a week for every man, woman and child in the country. And still Mr Cullen has increased spending further.

“The Finance Minister would have a lot more credibility if he had Government spending under control - and hadn’t just hiked taxes so that he can spend even more taxpayers’ hard-earned cash,” Rodney Hide said.

ENDS

For more information visit ACT online at http://www.act.org.nz or contact the ACT Parliamentary Office at act@parliament.govt.nz.

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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>>