"Roger Sowry must suspend WINZ Chief Executive Christine Rankin immediately and commission a full audit into the department," Labour employment spokesperson Steve Maharey said today.

"He has stood on the sidelines with his hands in his pockets too long and the price of his inaction is growing bigger by the day.

"His failure to come to Mrs Rankin's defence suggests that the government knows there is a problem but is trying hard not to get involved because for fear some of the mud may brush off on National.

"But staff morale is plummeting and the department's credibility, now dangerously low, sags further with each absurd revelation."

Mr Maharey said the latest instalment in the WINZ soap opera featuring a silver-suited Christine Rankine leading her staff into the danger zone and appearing to compare herself with major world figures had taken the issue into the realm of farce.

"The Minister must show decisive leadership or place at risk a department which is responsible for $12 billion of taxpayers' money.

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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>>