LEADER'S OFFICE

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PARLIAMENT HOUSE
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Media Release

13 June, 1999

Grover Defection - No Entitlement To Taxpayer Funds

The Rt Hon Winston Peters MP, Leader of New Zealand First, today said that Frank Grover's abandonment of the Alliance further highlights the increasing number of our politicians who have no regard for the Party, Principles and Volunteers that put them into Parliament.

"And Mr Grover deserves no thanks for refusing taxpayer funding when he and his new party are not entitled to it anyway. But the public also deserve to know whether Mr Grover and the Christian Heritage Party will be expecting taxpayer funding for election advertising - which they are also not entitled to.

"If Mr Grover and the Christian Heritage Party had the courage of their convictions Mr Grover would have resigned and let the next person on the Alliance List enter Parliament," said Mr Peters.

Mr Peters said that New Zealand First will not rest until the law is changed preventing MPs from abandoning the Party that put them into Parliament without first resigning and forcing a by-election if they are a Constituency Member and resigning full stop if they are a List Member.

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>>