Progressive join EPMU in combating Brash

EPMU national secretary, Andrew Little is right to portray a Brash-led National ACT government as a threat to working people.

Progressive Leader Jim Anderton, who addressed the annual Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union conference in Rotorua this afternoon said "this is a great time to be a New Zealander. We are enjoying the best economic conditions in a generation. Let’s not put that at risk. Let’s not put at risk the lowest level of unemployment since 1987. Let’s not turn back the clock.

"A Brash led National ACT government would turn back the clock to dismal days of high unemployment, low wages, struggling regions and reduced social services. We need to work together to prevent that.

"We need to lock in what we have achieved so far because everything this Labour Progressive government has accomplished is at risk at the next election. If Don Brash becomes Prime Minister a year from now you will lose four weeks leave and paid parental leave by lunchtime along with fair minded employment law and reasonable minimum wages. National predicted the developmental policies the Labour Progressive government is following would destroy jobs. They were wrong on all accounts but that won't stop them turning back the clock.

"Rising incomes and strength in the regions doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because the Labour Progressive government works in partnership, and Don Brash is deeply, passionately opposed to all of it. Partnerships with industry and the regions of New Zealand will also be gone by lunchtime.

"Under National there would be a return to the failed asset sales of the past. Air New Zealand and the rail tracks will again be sold off to companies with no interest in the nation's infrastructure needs, and may be run into the ground again.

"This Labour Progressive government had to open Kiwibank, to ensure low-fee banking services were available to all communities. But Don Brash will turn the clock back and sell that too. He also supports privatising the health system, the ACC and TVNZ. In fact, if there’s a piece of family silver not nailed down, that will go too.

"We should be positive about where we are going as a country and we should commit ourselves to locking in our gains and working together to build on our considerable strengths," Jim Anderton said.

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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>>