Media Release

12 October 1999

COURT CASE SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED

New Zealand First Deputy Leader, Peter Brown, MP, has congratulated firefighters on winning their appeal court cases, but says they should not have had to take their case to court in the first place.

“I have been on side of the firefighters in this matter from the word go because I believe there is no justification for the wholesale dismissal of all professional firefighters.

“These guys regularly put their lives on the line at short notice and serve this country in an exemplary manner. They should have been treated, right from the beginning, with the respect that they deserve and have rightly earned over many years”, said Mr Brown.

“The whole community has a great respect for firefighters, and the fire service commission should be tonight hanging their heads in shame at their treatment of our fire service personnel”.

ENDS

© 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>>