Senior Government Whip Rick Barker is attempting to put the blame on ACT for his and the Government’s messed-up attempts to fix up Easter trading regulations, ACT deputy leader Ken Shirley said today.

“Mr Barker’s attempt to push through a private members’ bill on Easter Sunday trading in wineries was a cheap stunt to try and get him off the hook for not doing his job properly.

“As chief whip he’s instrumental in organising the Government’s legislative programme. He knows full well that he could have put this through as Government legislation which we would have supported, instead, because he was in a bind time-wise, he tried to push it through in members’ time.

“The Government tried to do something that has never been done – pushing through a members’ bill that hasn’t been drawn in the ballot. His proposal was a blatant abuse of Parliamentary process which neither ACT nor National were prepared to tolerate.

“The Government wasn’t even promising to pass Mr Barker’s planned legislation in time, yet wanted the Opposition to support it without any guarantees.

“It is outrageous he’s now trying to lay the blame for his and the Government’s stuff-up at ACT’s door. Mr Barker should admit to his and his Government’s own shortcomings,” Ken Shirley said.

Ends

© Scoop Media

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>>