“Up to 48,000 low income workers have been consigned to the health scrap heap through the mean spirited removal of their right to a Community Services Card, which provides a subsidised public health service,” said Rt Hon Winston Peters.

New Zealand First has consistently called for the removal of the Community Services Card system but not until such time as public health is freely accessible to all.

“In 2001 it is simply inexcusable to deny every citizen access to a sound public health system and especially so if they are a working taxpayer.

“I cannot understand the logic of providing subsidised public health access to those on benefits, while removing a previous entitlement for those workers earning a comparably low income,” said Mr Peters.

Mr Peters said the Government’s move was exceptionally unfair.

“Rather than closing gaps, this decision turns them into yawing chasms,” concluded Mr Peters.

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>>