Jim Anderton MP Sun Sep 26 1999

The Alliance said today's announcement of the election date couldn't have come soon enough

'New Zealanders are tired of National and frightened of ACT,' Alliance leader Jim Anderton said.

'The policy platform which forms the basis of the Alliance election campaign represents a huge step forward towards a more co operative and fair New Zealand.

'National/Act have attacked every sector of the country in the last nine years.

'The sick, the old and the young have all had to pay a greater proportion of the cost of participating in their own society while National/Act have given away tax cuts to those on very high incomes.

'They have run this country into the ground. We have the highest foreign debt we have ever had and the economy has shrunk in three out of six quarters since Mrs Shipley became Prime Minister. She has been nothing short of a disaster

'The lateness of election day shows that the National/Act government is in real trouble and knows it. The National party was clearly divided even on the choice of election day.

'National will be concentrating on the negatives in this election campaign. That is because they have run out of ideas, run out of steam and they have run out of time,' Jim Anderton 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>>