"Dover Samuels sudden about face on Te Puni Kokiri is typical of Labour's approach to policy at this year's election," Mauri Pacific Leader, Hon Tau Henare, said today.

"At the last election Dover was promising to abolish TPK; three years later he wants to change it into a policy agency with more focus on being tied to the state.

"Who knows what he's going to come up with after he's lost this election."

Mr Henare said Labour had paid him the biggest compliment possible with the release of their Maori policy at the weekend.

"They've actually just repackaged some of Mauri Pacific's ideas we released on Friday and agreed to continue the programme that I've already put in place.

"There's no points for copying someone else's ideas in this game," he said.

"I also find it intriguing that Dover's preaching this philosophy of by Maori, for Maori. Where was this philosophical statement of the Labour party when Ngati Hine wanted support for a Maori prison in the North?

"Labour continue to patronise Maori with loose rhetoric, lies and deceit.

"The good thing for Maori is that now there are better options and real choices available to them," said Mr Henare.

ENDS

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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>>