28 September 1999

IS TIMID LABOUR BRAVE ENOUGH TO RENOUNCE LATEST ALLIANCE TAX LUNACY?

United New Zealand leader, Hon Peter Dunne, is challenging the Labour Party to renounce the Alliance’s latest tax policy.

“In the last week the Alliance has made two mad tax policy announcements: last week’s pledge to re-introduce land tax and kill off small business to fund tertiary education, and today’s crazy pledge that tax increases for the top 5% of income earners will make just about every Government service free to other taxpayers.”

“Both policies – indeed tax increases generally – would be disastrous for middle class New Zealand families.”

“Yet timid Labour has remained silent on both occasions, too scared of renouncing the Alliance plans for fear of upsetting its only potential coalition partner.”

“The message is unmistakably clear – timid Labour’s silence means consent.”

“A Labour-led Government will follow the Alliance’s mad tax plans as the price of the Alliance’s support of that Government,” he says.

Mr Dunne says Labour is so desperate to gain power this election it will go along with what the Alliance is saying in case it is yet again left on the electoral shelf.

“However, the only message Labour’s silence and timidity sends to anxioous voters is one of tacit complicity.”

“People now know that a vote for Labour is really a vote for the Alliance.”

“And the more Labour remains silent, too frightened to confront the Alliance’s lunacy, the more people will know that it would be the Alliance’s agenda that would drive the direction of any future Labour-led Government,” he says.

ENDS
New Zealand’s Liberal Party

MEDIA STATEMENT
HON PETER DUNNE, MP
LEADER UNITED NEW ZEALAND
Parliament Buildings, Wellington 1.
e-mail: peter.dunne@parliament.govt.nz. Internet Address: http://www.united.org.nz

New Zealand’s Liberal Party

© 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>>