Media Statement For immediate release Thursday, 12 February, 2004

Turner: CYFS - is there anything left to save?

United Future family affairs spokeswoman Judy Turner today asked the Government how the public could possibly have confidence in CYFS when it totally failed to implement September 2002 call centre recommendations that could have saved the life of murdered Wairarapa girl Coral-Ellen Burrows.

"That Ailsa Duffy QC should have to report that a lack of quality assurance was responsible for the fact that Ron Burrows' call about his daughter months before her death was not treated as a notification is bad enough," Mr Turner said.

"But that her inquiries found not a single call centre worker that she interviewed had been under the supervision or given the training that the 2002 report recommended is little short of criminal," she said.

"It is simply unacceptable," Mr Turner said in Parliament today, in tackling Government Minister Ruth Dyson.

"New Zealanders are now asking if CYFS can be fixed with anything less than ripping the whole outfit down and starting all over again - and frankly, who can blame them?" Mrs Turner asked.

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>>