Green Party Co-Leader Rod Donald said today he would not be apologising to
Defence Minister Max Bradford after revealing that taxpayer money was wasted
on a glitzy conference.

Mr Bradford has accused Mr Donald of implying that he (Mr Bradford) had
concealed facts about military attendance at the World Masters Of Business
Seminar in May and has demanded an apology from Mr Donald.

"Mr Bradford is trying to divert attention away from the gross waste of
money by Defence and his responsibilities for it, Mr Donald said.

Mr Donald said he had no intention of apologising "for highlighting the
obscene waste of money and for pointing out that the minister should have
known that army and navy personal attended the Masters Of Business Seminar
by July 28".

"I alerted Mr Bradford that army and navy staff had booked a 10 seat table
each for $6750 in the House and this was covered in a front page article in
the Dominion on July 28," he said.

"This revelation should have been enough to spur Max into action but
apparently he only investigated further when forced to by my written
parliamentary question," Mr Donald 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>>