"National has scaled new heights of silliness and shown a complete failure to understand the dynamics of MMP in its latest attempt to run a scare campaign against Labour on tax," Labour finance spokesperson Michael Cullen said today.

Dr Cullen was responding to claims by Bill English, Max Bradford and Roger Sowry that Labour is actively considering the Alliance's proposed tax on the unimproved value of commercial land.

"It should be remembered that it was the last Labour Government which in 1990 removed this tax on the grounds that it was difficult to administer and unfair to small business. Our view has not changed.

"But if the Alliance wants to revisit the issue, they will be able to make a submission to that effect to our planned comprehensive review of the taxation system.

"We have already made clear that any recommendations for significant new taxes to emerge from that review will not be implemented without the electorate first having an opportunity to vote on them in the 2002 general election," Dr Cullen said.

"However all this is beside the point. What is really going on here is that Mr English, Mr Bradford and Mr Sowry are ignoring the realities of MMP - or pretending that these realities apply only to Labour and the Alliance and not with equal force to National and Act.

"The Alliance has a much more optimistic view than Labour on how much extra tax New Zealanders are prepared to pay just as Act takes a different view to National on the cuts to social services people would be prepared to trade away for lower taxes.

"Rodney Hide recommitted Act this week to cutting the top personal and company tax rate to 20 percent. That would cost billions of dollars in lost revenue, and require larger cuts to social spending than even most National MPs could stomach.

"For these reasons, National and Act will go into the election campaign with different tax policies just as Labour and the Alliance will. Each party's ability to argue their position in coalition negotiations post-election will depend on the size of the mandate they get from the public," Dr Cullen said.

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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>>