TVNZ and NZ Post Chairman Ross Armstrong is being paid SOE directors fees totalling over $200,000 - almost as much as the Prime Ministers salary, according to National spokesperson for State Owned Enterprises Murray McCully.

"When directors fees are set for the two TVNZ subsidiaries, on which Dr Armstrong is expected to sit, his fees may exceed the Prime Minister's $231,000 per year, he said.

Mr McCully says he's based is assertion on figures released today in an answer to a Parliamentary question which showed that Dr Armstrong will collect $24,000 per year as a director of Kiwibank.

"This comes on top of $62,672 as chair of NZ Post, $80,500 as chair of TVNZ, and $39,000 as chair of the Crown Research Institute, Industrial Research Ltd - an all up total of $206,172. On that basis a modest $20,000 each for the two new TVNZ subsidiaries will have Dr Armstrong being paid more than the Prime Minister," Mr McCully said.

Ends

© Scoop Media

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>>