For immediate release

Monday, 3 May 2004

United Future abstains from Te Tai Hauauru sideshow

The board of the United Future party decided at its meeting in Wellington today not to stand a candidate in the upcoming by-election in Te Tai Hauauru.

Party leader Peter Dunne said the by-election would be an unnecessary and expensive piece of nonsense forced upon the country by the failure of Labour’s leadership to sell its own legislation to its own supporters; and by the devious dithering of an MP who wished to push the Maori sovereignty ambitions of her small band of supporters.

“Quite frankly, the country’s sick of the silly antics of Mrs Turia, who apparently can’t make her own mind up about lying down in the back seat of a car and has to rely on Prime Ministerial advice.

“Now she’s talking up the prospects of a Maori-based party, which will apparently campaign for a separate Maori political system.

“There’s a name for that sort of system and the name is apartheid – a political system that New Zealand and the rest of the civilised world rejected years ago.

“The names of Maori politicians who achieved real progress for their people include Ngata, Carroll, Buck and Tirikatene – all of whom worked within the current political system.

“The chances of the name of Turia being added to that distinguished list are zero,” concluded Mr Dunne.

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>>