24 May, 2004

Greens want Budget bail-out for struggling nurses

The Green Party is calling on the Government to respond in the Budget to the near-unanimous call from nurses for fair pay and safe staffing levels.

"Some 98 per cent of the members of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation have voted in favour of fair pay and safe staffing," Green Health spokesperson, Sue Kedgley said today. "The Budget now gives the Government the perfect opportunity to show that it listens to workers and that it honours its own rhetoric on pay equity.

"Nurses are struggling under excessive workloads that place patient safety at risk. At the same time, they are victims of historical pay inequity that has seriously undervalued professions predominantly staffed by women."

The Green Party is backing the call from the Nurses Organisation for a binding ratio of one nurse to between four and six patients, depending on the size of hospital. It is also calling for a significant change to the Employment Relations Act to make it a breach of good faith not to take genuine steps to address pay and employment equity issues.

ENDS

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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>>