Thursday 1 Nov 2001

ACT Fisheries Spokesman Rodney Hide said today that Dame Cath Tizard's Ministerial Advisory Committee's report "Healthy Sea: Healthy Society" is so trite that Dame Cath and her committee members should hand back the money they have been paid to prepare it.

"I said it was a complete waste of money from the start but I have to say that I am still shocked just how bad the report is.

"Dame Cath has spent $750,000 to discover that New Zealanders want: * Clean water * The ocean to be healthy and productive * Intrinsic and intangible values protected * The ability to enjoy economic benefits without compromising the well-being of the oceans

And so on....

"I told the government that all for free back before the Committee had spent a dollar. I predicted every part of it before a word had been written.

"Dame Cath has been paid $800 a day and the seven members of her team have each been $600 a day to produce a trite and useless document. They should pay the money back. And if they are not prepared to pay the money back, the Minister should demand it," Rodney Hide 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>>