Asset Testing Remains

“The Government has missed another opportunity to keep its promise to remove asset testing for the elderly in long term care,” said New Zealand First senior citizens spokesperson Barbara Stewart.

“The Social Security (Long Term Residential Care) Amendment Bill was supposed to remove income and asset testing. Raising the threshold of retainable assets is not removing asset testing, which is what Labour has promised to do in the last two election campaigns,” said Mrs Stewart.

“This is another example of the Government’s weasel words but this time they are directed at people who are in no position to object to this cavalier treatment.

“Labour was full of good intentions regarding removing asset testing in its entirety but so far they have failed miserably and this Bill will not improve matters.

“New Zealand First supports nothing less than the complete removal of asset testing for the elderly needing long stay geriatric hospital care,” said Mrs Stewart.

© 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>>