The Government needs to go back to the drawing board with smoking legislation, ACT Internal Affairs Spokesman Penny Webster said today.

"It is about time the Government starts listening to the hundreds of business people who are going to be affected by these fundamentally flawed laws.

"The further delays announced by Judy Keall prove that they haven't got it right. The anomalies affecting pubs - and now, it appears, clubs as well - show that it is ill-conceived legislation. We support HANZ CEO Bruce Robertson, and Clubs New Zealand CEO Roger Parton in their call for the legislation to be redrafted.

"There are other ways to achieve what the Government is trying to achieve, and these should be looked at. Restrictive and draconian legislation never works," Penny Webster said.

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>>