Monday, 11 October 2004

UF MP’s: Re-direct road funding to Wgton, Tauranga

Ohariu-Belmont MP, Peter Dunne, and Tauranga-based MP, Larry Baldock, say the weekend’s local body elections have thrown up one obvious message; Aucklanders don’t want to spend money on roads while the people of Wellington and Tauranga do.

“The real mayor of Auckland, Dr Bruce Hucker, has already announced the eastern corridor motorway won’t go ahead while the elected mayor, Dick Hubbard, wants a lot more reviews and studies and other work done on preparing for public transport modes,” the two men said.

“Meanwhile, the billions of dollars the Government has committed to relieving Auckland’s snarled traffic problems lie around doing nothing when they could easily be re-directed towards New Zealand’s most important export port at Tauranga and New Zealand’s most vibrant city, Wellington.

“When our Auckland friends eventually make up their minds on what they really want, we’ll be happy to support them, but in the meantime we’d be grateful if they’d relinquish their hold on the central Government funding so the rest of the country can get on with the job of modernising our transport infrastructure and helping New Zealand make real progress,” they said.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

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>>