Labour Leader Helen Clark and Labour health spokesperson Annette King said that boosting the childhood immunisation rate would be a priority under Labour.

Helen Clark and Annette King said that urgent action was required to tackle the re-emergence of diseases like whooping cough.

"Whooping cough is the latest preventable disease to re-emerge. In recent years we have also seen outbreaks of other diseases like tuberculosis and measles.

"Three areas of government failure are chiefly responsible:
· New Zealand's vaccination rate has worsened in recent years with a recent Ministry of Health report showing that the immunisation coverage has declined since 1996;
· rising levels of poverty due to state house market rentals;
· and the breakdown in delivery of primary health services through the cuts to public health nurses and Plunket services.

"What is needed is a government that vigorously promotes immunisation to parents, that is prepared to tackle the causes of disease through the introduction of income-related state house rents and is committed to improving primary health services.

"Labour in government will make these needs a priority. Tackling these issues will help give New Zealand children the safe start to life that they deserve."

© 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>>