Labour deputy Leader Michael Cullen has laid a breach of privilege charge against Maori Affairs Minister Tau Henare for misleading Parliament.

"Today Mr Henare tabled a letter in the House designed to prevent charges that he had misused his position as a minister to seek help for a kapahaka group of which one of his children is a member.

"I want to congratulate the group on its excellence and wish it well for funding.

"But Mr Henare should have disclosed a personal interest in this matter. Nor should he have used official ministerial letterhead paper which is a clear breach of normal conventions and protocols in these sorts of matters.

"Clearly Mr Henare deliberately misled the House by tabling a version of the letter which did not include the ministerial letterhead," Dr Cullen said.

© 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>>