The Budget 2004 Overview

Supporting economic growth

Research, Science and Technology:

$212 million plus over four years bringing total public investment to $621 million; an almost 45 per cent increase since Labour took office.

Tertiary education:

$149 million package to build excellence in the tertiary education sector.
$110 million student support package.

Business support:

Up to $12 million over four years for a new Major Events Fund; part of the $500 million Growth and Innovation package, most of which has already been released.
$30 million to promote greater workplace productivity.
$10 million operational funding over four years to the Maori Business Facilitation Service.

Already announced:

$56.9 million to assist young people make the shift from school to work; includes another 500 Modern Apprenticeships and expansion of the Gateway programme.
Up to $10 million a year in the next three years and up to $12 million thereafter for NZ Trade and Enterprise.
$6.6 million extra a year, $26.5 million over four years, for Investment New Zealand.
$16.1 million over four years for the Strategic Investment Fund.
$35 million over four years to fund a new Market Development Assistance Scheme to help exporters develop markets.
Up to $2 million a year boost for Brand NZ promotions.
$1.7 million this year and $800,000 next year toward trade deals with China, Thailand, Chile and Singapore.
$3.5 million to help New Zealand take full advantage of opportunities presented by participating in next year's Aichi Expo.
$1.65 million to begin work on a new embassy in Cairo.
$40 million over four years to promote international education.
$26 million over four years for sector focussed development.
$1.2 million in each of the next two years for management development.
$2.3 million over three years for textile industry transformation.
$62 million over four years to better integrate migrants into the economy.
$3 million for the International Investment Opportunities Fund in 2004-05, increasing to $4 million in 2005-06 and $5 million a year from 2006-07.
$11 million over three years to develop tourism infrastructure.
$21.2 million for new initiatives, conditional on industry agreement, under the Forest Industry Framework Agreement.
$500,000 available if needed for further infrastructure stocktake work in the coming year.
$8 million over the next two years to ease the costs to exporters of Customs export clearance.

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>>