27 February 2001

Press Release

NEW ZEALAND FIRST CAUCUS TO SUPPORT PEOPLE’S BANK

SLAMS NATIONAL/ACT HYPOCRISY

The Rt Hon Winston Peters MP, Leader of New Zealand First, today said that following a briefing last week by New Zealand Post, and this morning’s Caucus Meeting, New Zealand First had agreed to support the People’s Bank.

“We have always been strongly behind a New Zealand owned bank providing a wide banking network encouraging savings and reducing bank charges,” said Mr Peters.

Mr Peters said that criticisms of the Bank by the National Party, concerned at the use of taxpayers’ funds, were ridiculous given that they had spent $100 million on Incis and four times that had been spent on teaching kiwis how to say Kia Ora.

“The National and ACT Party’s concerns about our most successful SOE running a bank were not reflected when they allowed the BNZ and the DFC to be ripped off, run down and hocked off. Where were their concerns for the New Zealand people then?” asked Mr Peters.

ENDS

© 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>>