Prime Minister Helen Clark is today travelling in the Tauranga and Rotorua area and will not be able to receive a copy of the Controller and Auditor-General's report into the administration of ministerial allowances until later tonight.

Helen Clark said she would not be commenting fully on the report until she had had time to consider it thoroughly and discuss it with Deputy Prime Minister Jim Anderton.

"I am advised that the report is 65 pages long and it will require careful consideration," Helen Clark said.

Helen Clark said she noted that the key conclusion with respect to Marian Hobbs was that she made sufficient disclosure of her personal circumstances to enable parliamentary staff to advise her properly, and that she acted reasonably on that advice when claiming the allowance.

"I note further that the finding with respect to Phillida Bunkle is that she also made sufficient disclosure of her personal circumstances to enable parliamentary staff to advise her properly, and that she acted reasonably on that advice when claiming the allowance."

Helen Clark said the report of the Registrar of Electors into Phillida Bunkle's enrolment was still awaited.

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>>