ACT Finance Spokesman Rodney Hide said today the government’s plans for an Export Credit Guarantee Scheme was no substitute for sound policy.

“Here we have this government again risking taxpayers’ dollars without attending to the fundamentals of sound economic policy. Spraying more money around is not the answer for business.

“What we desperately need in New Zealand is lower tax and less red tape. Instead, this government is going in quite the wrong direction – taxes are up, regulatory compliance is up – and all that business gets is a little tax back that it already has had to cough up.

“It’s no wonder our standard of living continues to slide,” said Rodney Hide.

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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>>