It's disgraceful that Jim Anderton has attacked Don Brash, saying the Reserve Bank Governor should not have given his real views to the Catching the Knowledge Wave conference, ACT leader Richard Prebble says.

"Helen Clark personally invited Dr Brash to give an address. Both the Prime Minister and Dr John Hood, as joint chairs of the conference, urged all participants to contribute frankly and to refrain from personal attacks," Mr Prebble said.

"Dr Brash has done exactly what the government asked him to do, only to be subject to a personal attack from the Deputy Prime Minister.

"Nothing will destroy the knowledge economy faster than this government's regrettable tendency to personally attack the messenger rather than the message.

"I regarded Dr Brash's speech as thought-provoking. When the Reserve Bank Governor says that achieving 3.5 percent per capita growth is difficult but achievable, we should listen. When he points out that despite a fall in unemployment, there are 60,000 more people on welfare, we should take notice.

"When he observes that New Zealand now has the highest corporate tax rate in the Asian region, that should alarm us. When he says we should look at funded superannuation, it ought to be carefully considered.

"But then the ACT Party has also been making each of these points ' but possibly not so eruditely as Dr Brash ' so I suppose our views will also be dismissed with a personal attack," Mr Prebble 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>>