ACT Leader Richard Prebble is in Gisborne today to launch the campaign of ACT's East Coast candidate Ian Swan.

The campaign is being launched at a public meeting at the Poverty Bay Club at 7.00 pm tonight.

"ACT is seeking to become the party of heartland New Zealand," Mr Prebble said. "Ian Swan is one of more than 15 ACT candidates with a primary sector background. This election is the first ever where National does not have the largest number of candidates with a rural background."

Mr Swan is a local farmer.

"ACT is campaigning in this year's election that the most effective way to restore the balance of payments, lift export earnings and lift jobs and growth in the heartland is to restore farming profitability," Mr Prebble said.

"Rural New Zealand has done the hard yards in improving efficiency and innovation. It's government red tape, user charges and taxes that are bleeding the heartland. Only ACT has positive solutions to axe unnecessary bureaucracy and to lower taxes."

ENDS

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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>>