ACT Social Services Spokesman Dr Muriel Newman has called on the Government to stop wasting yet more money on its Christine Rankin removal scheme and call off the sham merger of the Department of Work and Income and the Ministry of Social Policy.

"Helen Clark and Trevor Mallard dreamed up this mock merger late last year when they thought they would have a problem getting rid of Ms Rankin. There was no other reason for it. They did no research, they didn't consult either department. They did no costings.

"We've still seen no costings. The Government is delaying answering all our written Parliamentary questions on this subject.

"We saw Helen Clark and her plotters spend $500,000 of taxpayers money saving their skins in the Employment Court case. How much more money from the public purse is going to be wasted in the mock merger?

"Helen Clark and friends couldn't find $14 million dollars to give Community Services Card access to 48,000 of the working poor, but it seems they're prepared to commit limitless amounts of our money to Rankin removal.

"Creation of the DWI has resulted in taxpayer savings of $24 million a year. How much of these savings will be lost through the merger?

"I say to Helen Clark and the Government: Your plotting worked, you got rid of Ms Rankin, now have some sympathy for the taxpayer ' abandon the merger," Dr Newman 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>>