ACT Finance spokesman Rodney Hide said that Taranaki farmers had ACT MP Owen Jennings to thank for an unprecedented turnaround in government bill that was to passed under urgency that would see them losing a third of their much deserved compensation.

“Michael Cullen had all parties bar ACT signed up to his Bill to be passed under urgency this week that would at the 11th hour rob farmers of their legally established compensation.

“Owen Jennings who had kept close with Taranaki people since his highly successful bid for the seat in the by-election wasn’t having a bar of it.

“He mobilised the farmers and explained the issues to the other MPs across all parties.

“Michael Cullen to his credit saw sense and in an unprecedented action cancelled the Bill. I congratulate Michael Cullen for his open-mindedness and his listening to reason.

“It would have been a travesty of justice with huge implications to all landowners and to the economy if he had stuck with his Bill.

“The real issue now is whether he will hold his official to account who had given him such disastrous advice. Without Owen Jennings, their will would have prevailed to the cost of each and every New Zealander,” concluded Rodney Hide.

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>>