Belinda Vernon National Transport Spokesperson

4 October 2001

Govt's nationalism over Air NZ a bit rich

The Government's claims that it is saving Air New Zealand is jingositic nationalism to mask the fact that it got taxpayers into this huge bail out, National's Transport spokesperson Belinda Vernon said today.

"Michael Cullen is claiming the Government to be the saviour of our national airline but he's failing to explain to taxpayers the real reason why they have to bail it out.

"The Government's jumped on the 'pride in our national airline' bandwagon usually reserved for commercial advertising.

"That's more than a bit rich. Labour didn't have much pride in Air New Zealand when it stopped a capital injection from Singapore Airlines and then dawdled for so long on a deal that Air New Zealand fell into dire straits. "Taxpayers are now having to pay for this Government's hopelessness in business and commercial decisions. It's a cheap shot to become nationalistic now simply to mask its set of blunders over Air New Zealand," Ms Vernon 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.

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