20 July 04

Hodgson says money for Bay of Plenty road repairs a top priority

The government has committed to act quickly to repair roads in flood-ravaged Bay of Plenty.

" We are acting to re-connect local communities and getting the local economy back to normal as soon as possible," says Pete Hodgson. Re-opening and repairing roads is a matter of real urgency.

"Transfund, Transit, local government and contractors have made a start in dealing with the most immediate problems. And, by the end of this week, once floodwaters have receded, we will have a much clearer idea of the full scale of repairs and what they will cost.

"Money for emergency work such as this is ready and waiting. Transfund typically budgets $25 -$30 million per annum to deal with precisely the sort of problems we now have with state highways and local roads in the Bay of Plenty. Following spending from the emergency fund to deal with February's flooding of the lower central North Island, Transfund doubled this year's allocation to the emergency fund to $59 million.

"Transfund will prioritise spending and fast track projects where necessary in the Bay of Plenty in the same way it did in the lower central North Island."

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>>