Media Statement
For immediate release
Thursday, 26 February, 2004

Adams: Business needs a heart by-pass

The Government needs to turn its new-found sensitivity to electorate concerns to the plight of small business by reviewing the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill, United Future's Paul Adams said today.

"Because right now business is clogged up by red tape and it is about to get worse with provisions in the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill," he said.

"While the Government finally appears to be listening to middle New Zealand, perhaps Small Business Minister John Tamihere might like to prick up his ears to the cry of New Zealand business and help unblock a few of these regulation arteries.

"Small business is the pumping heart of this country and supplies the income to thousands and thousands of New Zealanders, and we have a Government that continues to make life tough for it.

"The arteries to that pumping heart are clogged with bureaucratic compliance requirements and costs."

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>>