Lax border controls are leaving New Zealand wide open to the foot and mouth virus sweeping the UK, National's Biosecurity and Border Control spokesman Eric Roy says.

"Its shocking that a New Zealander who had been on a farm in Aberdeenshire, an area since confirmed to be infected with foot and mouth disease, was allowed to enter New Zealand on Monday without having her footwear checked.

"The woman declared on her customs form before she entered New Zealand at Auckland that she had been in Scotland and England, in the five days after the outbreak, but her footwear wasn't even checked.

"She was appalled she wasn't questioned about whether she had been on or to a farm in the United Kingdom, there was no bag search and apparently no audit process on people coming from those countries now grappling to control the disease.

"This lax approach to border control is putting at risk the livelihoods of New Zealanders. If the virus is allowed to enter the country it would wipe out exports from both agricultural and equestrian industries.

"If New Zealanders returning home are expressing concern about the adequacy of protection we have a problem.

"There was nothing to tell this passenger flying home of the significance of the risk. We need to educate inbound travellers about the huge significance of preventing the disease arriving here," Eric Roy said.

Ends

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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>>