Wed Sep 29 1999

The Alliance policy to raise the minimum wage and give beneficiaries $20 a week will create 80,000 jobs not destroy them, contrary to what Act claims.

'Roger Douglas should know about destroying jobs. When he was finance minister he destroyed two hundred thousand of them,' Alliance Leader Jim Anderton said.

'Increasing the minimum wage will not cost jobs. There is no reputable research that shows increasing minimum wages cost jobs. When the minimum wage rose from $6.50 to $7 an hour jobs were not lost as a result.

'Alliance policies will create 80,000 jobs.

'The Alliance Economic Development fund will invest in new job-rich, high technology industries.

'Our free education policy is the best investment in the knowledge economy money can buy.

'Act on the other hand wants to cut $500 million from industry assistance and $150 million from primary industries over the next two years. This will cost thousands of jobs.

'Act claims people will leave New Zealand and go to Australia because of Alliance tax policies. Australia's top tax rate is 47 cents in the dollar and will cut in at a threshold of $50,000, rising to $60,000 when GST is introduced on July 1st, 2000 much less than what the Alliance is suggesting.

'Act is the looney tax party in this election. They want to give the top 10% of income earners a huge tax cut but have nothing for the majority of New Zealanders,' Jim Anderton said.

Visit http://www.alliance.org.nz for more information about the Alliance

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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>>