“I challenge Helen Clark and Jim Anderton to come to Otara and explain to the Rangatira Trust and other Community Taskforce schemes why these highly successful programmes will be axed under a Labour-Alliance government”, said ACT Leader Hon Richard Prebble at ACT’s Welfare to Work policy launch today.

“The ACT party has come out today to Otara to the Rangatira Trust, a programme that has been running successfully for more than 10 years. This Trust sets itself the goal of giving a practical hand-up to people that politicians have written-off with a welfare cheque. These people don’t want welfare, what they want is a real job and the respect that comes with being self-sufficient.

“It’s a shame that Labour and the Alliance only talk about Otara but don’t actually have the guts to front up to these people who are desperately in need of work.

“Frankly, it would be good if every Community Taskforce scheme had a graffiti-busting bus like the Rangatira Trust’s, which has literally wiped away Otara’s violent and depressing past. Through persistence and hard work this Trust has not only actively helped the unemployed and young people, but it has also changed the community as a whole.

“I predict that if Labour and the Alliance form a government we will see the rise of graffiti and gang crime, and Otara will be returned to a state of hopelessness”, said ACT

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>>