Media Release

13 October 1999

New Zealand First believes that National should have been tough on gangs and drug dealers for the past nine years instead of leaving it a few weeks before an election campaign.

"While National is congratulating themselves on the crime statistics, closer examination will show that nationally, violent crime has risen, and provincial areas like Northland have recorded an increase.

"The true picture is that crime has stabilised at a very high level.

"National, and Labour before them, have allowed the social environment in New Zealand to deteriorate to the extent that the criminal is flourishing and our honest citizens are too scared to leave their homes," said Deputy Leader Peter Brown.

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>>