Otago residents will be burdened with higher rates so that local councils can keep the Southerner rail service running, ACT MP Gerry Eckhoff said today.

"The power of general competence will allow Dunedin City Council and Otago Regional Council to increase rates in order to pay for this highly risky venture.

"The Labour Government has indicated a level of financial support for a passenger rail service even if substantial losses occur. Inevitably, when the issue has died down, they will withdraw this support and ratepayers will be left shouldering the entire cost.

"Rates must increase. Existing passenger rates will have to double just to allow this service to break even.

"Labour encourages people to use the train service. Yet I wonder when Mr David Benson-Pope last used a train to go to Invercargill or Christchurch.

"The ratepayers of Otago should not have to shoulder the burdens and risks that this endeavour will bring," Gerry Eckhoff 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>>