The new social security agreement with Australia was signed today, Acting Foreign Affairs Minister Jim Sutton said.

The treaty was signed in Canberra by New Zealand High Commissioner Simon Murdoch and Australian Minister for Family and Community Services Senator Amanda Vanstone.

Mr Sutton said the agreement would set up a new cost-sharing mechanism in respect of payments to superannuitants, veterans, and people with severe disabilities who have lived on both sides of the Tasman.

"The revised system will ensure that the contributions people have made to each country during their working lives are properly reflected in the payments they receive," Mr Sutton said.

People already receiving payments under the terms of the existing agreement will not be affected by the changes.

Further information on how the agreement affects individual circumstances can be obtained from the Department of Work and Income on the free phone number 0800 777577.

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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>>