Media statement
For immediate release
Thursday, 6 May 2004

Dunne urges unity and nationhood during foreshore debate

United Future leader, Peter Dunne, warned Parliament today that the country risked being torn apart, unless the House could speak unequivocally on the Government’s foreshore and seabed legislation.

He said the legislation would lack a moral mandate if it was passed with a narrow majority.

He warned that if Parliament could not achieve a positive result that would allow the nation to go forward, then “we won’t have a nation to be proud of”.

Mr Dunne criticised the Labour caucus for its inability to control its own numbers in order to gather support for the legislation, but made a point of praising the government’s chief negotiator, Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Michael Cullen, for his openness, integrity, honesty and straightforwardness in his dealings with United Future during the drawing-up of the Bill.

United Future opposes the Bill, because the concept of the foreshore and seabed being in the public domain has been dropped, opening up the possibility of future Governments being able to sell or otherwise dispose of those assets.

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>>