SOE Minister Mark Burton's feeble stop-gap measure to salvage the NZ Post Board is neither credible nor durable, ACT Finance Spokesman Rodney Hide said today.

"Mr Burton left the NZ Post wound to fester for two weeks, and then had to threaten to sack the Board in order for them to stop in-fighting. New Zealand Post's problems have not been addressed. Mr Burton believes the entire board has magically transformed, saying that the last 72 hours proved to him that the Board has an ability to work together. What about the past two weeks?

"Today's move is short-sighted, politically motivated and ultimately doomed.

"We need a firm and immediate commitment from Mr Armstrong that the results of the third-party audit on NZ Post's board will be made public.

"The real problem here isn't a political one, it is a business one. NZ Post faces a tough trading environment and the Board has been diverted from its core business by a politically inspired banking proposal, which every piece of advice the board got has warned against. Ross Armstrong and Jim Anderton have both staked their reputations on the bank, so the Board cannot do the decent thing and ditch the proposal.

"It is clear that NZ Post's future is in chaos under this Board. 'MyBank' looked difficult before, but now it will be impossible," Rodney Hide 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>>