Ministers today confirmed that the best offer available to Corrections Association of New Zealand (CANZ) is already on the table. This offer has already been accepted by the PSA and other staff.

Trevor Mallard, Minister of State Services, and Matt Robson, the Minister of Corrections said it was essential that staff seriously considered the offer at the forthcoming stopwork meetings.

“Some CANZ members have apparently been under the misapprehension that industrial action will force the Government to provide funding. This is impossible.

“We have assessed the offer the Department has made to staff. It represents a 3.1% increase over two years. In the context of other settlements and in a situation where there are no recruitment and retention issues, we believe the offer is fair and appropriate.

“CANZ is asking for a 7.7% increase over one year, but there is simply no more funding to meet an increased pay demand," says Trevor Mallard.

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>>