29 July 2004

Mallard all talk, no action

Trevor Mallard has absolutely no credibility on Treaty issues when he can't even sort out the problems in his own portfolio area of education, says National's Education spokesman, Bill English.

Six months ago Mr Mallard promised to remove ethnic weighting from the decile funding formula.

"But we are yet to see any action because he knows that schools up and down the country will be upset by the inevitable funding changes.

"The tertiary education sector is rife with treaty-ology. Industry training organisations have been ordered to sort out their treaty 'obligations' but why should the experts that train our plumbers and mechanics have to bow to political correctness?

"Trevor Mallard has shown no willingness and no capacity to push back the political correctness that he has encouraged in his own Ministry.

"He is all talk and no action," says Mr English.

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>>