DOC’s Kaikoura Disaster Demonstrates One Law For Fishermen And No Law For The Department

The Rt Hon Winston Peters MP, Leader of New Zealand First, today said that the spillage yesterday of rat poison for DOC use demonstrates that clearly the Department is over vigilant on policy for private fishing interests and cavalier about its own policies.

“Instead of acting as a wildlife protection agency, in this case they have been instrumental in the decimation of fish and seals. Had this accident happened at other parts of the South Island seal destruction would have reached appalling figures.

“This is the Department that demands the fishing industry provide escape tunnels in fishing nets for seals and observers on a constant basis. These costs are excessive to the fishing industry.

“No doubt they would regard as absurd and fanciful a demand for observers and greater safety precautions on road transporters.

“It is high time the Department of Conservation imposed the same rigour to their operations as they require from private operators,” said Mr Peters.

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>>