13TH MARCH 2001

“Recommendations made by a Ministerial Review Group for school staffing changes will not be able to be implemented because of budget realities,” said New Zealand First Education Spokesperson, Hon Brian Donnelly MP.

“The report creates expectations which the Government will not be able to meet. Estimation of costs of the total package are in the vicinity of 200 million dollars per year. The Minister needs to announce where he is going to find the money and where he is going to find the extra teachers, otherwise the report will remain nothing more that a wish list of teacher associations rather than a workable blueprint for needed staffing improvements.

The Minister has now got a tiger by the tail,” said Mr Donnelly.

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>>