Labour's $750,000 Artworks Spend-up

ACT New Zealand Associate Finance Spokesman Deborah Coddington today revealed that Labour has spent more than $727,000 of taxpayers' money on works of art to decorate Government departments and Ministries since coming to office.

"Answers to my written Parliamentary Questions have revealed that, from 1999-2003, the Government spent $727,284 acquiring artworks for display in its departments and Ministries," Miss Coddington said.

"This figure may not sound like a lot to a government that has built a reputation on extravagant spending - but to thousands of hard-working New Zealanders, finding it hard to make ends meet, it's an insult.

"The priority for public spending should be in the areas of greatest need. Money spent on these artworks could have saved lives by providing more beds for dangerous psychiatric patients, provided a speedier justice service for crime victims, or it could have saved families the expense of paying for NCEA fees.

"New Zealand continues to slip further down the OECD ladder, while the Government spends taxes on luxuries," Miss Coddington said.

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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>>