Damien O'Connor is risking thousands of jobs on the West Coast, Alliance leader Jim Anderton said today.

Responding to Mr O'Connor's latest press release, Jim Anderton said the biggest problem facing the West Coast was its poor leadership and parliamentary representation.

'As one of the weakest backbenchers in Parliament, Damien O'Connor has to take personal responsibility for the way it's represented in Parliament. If he keeps confusing cutting down ancient trees with genuinely sustainable employment, the West Coast will miss out on the development it needs and thousands of jobs will be lost.

'It's too important to the Coast to allow that to happen.

'Genuinely sustainable industries include high quality education, developing the Coast's tourism potential, agriculture, horticulture, diversification of the timber industry.

'Why is it that Damien O'Connor has spent far more time advocating chopping down ancient trees than defending the jobs of Coast fishers who can't afford!
their own quota?

'I want to see genuine new technology industries like Tait electronics, employing thousands of people and exporting, like Tait's, $150 million a year. Those exports could be from centres like Greymouth, Westport and Hokitika. There is no reason why the Coast can't have two or three of those types of firms.

'The future of the Coast is not in chopping down ancient trees. It is in sustainable hi-paid, high-quality, high-skilled jobs with a permanent future,' Jim Anderton said.
Visit http://www.alliance.org.nz for more information about the Alliance

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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>>