"To further stoke consumption with yet another round of tax cuts when imports are already galloping ahead of exports would be irresponsible," Labour finance spokesperson Michael Cullen said today.

Dr Cullen was commenting on the overseas merchandise trade figures for August showing a monthly deficit of $433 million. This result is more than twice as bad as the average August deficit for the 1990s.

"The last thing an economy in this position needs is further income tax cuts because that will only increase the appetite for imports. What we need is a strategy to strengthen the country's export base and to lessen our reliance on primary production.

"That has been well understood by Labour for a long time but National took until its ninth year in power to even acknowledge the problem. That represents nine years of lost opportunity.

"New Zealand desperately needs the kind of economic leadership and change in direction that Labour is offering. November 27 can't come soon enough," Dr Cullen said.

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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>>