New Zealand First leader, Rt Hon Winston Peters, believes Bendon’s decision to leave New Zealand to pursue ‘better marketing and export opportunities’ should have been put off until after the election.

“We are losing businesses every week to foreign shores as other countries provide a better business environment and attractive incentives to relocate. A change of government would mean a change of focus with regard to tariffs and manufacturing policy”, said Mr Peters.

“Until this country starts understanding the harsh realities of global marketing, New Zealand will continue to struggle economically. We will continue to see exporters, technology, and our brightest people leave our shores.

“Mrs Shipley should stop what she is currently doing, go up and see the Bendon management, and persuade them to defer this decision until after the election.

“She would then be doing something today that was positive and in the national interest, rather than she and her Cabinet leaving their collective heads in the sand while New Zealand export manufacturers lose a business a week to other countries and governments that understand the real economy.

New Zealand can no longer tolerate 15 years of Labour and National economic failure and decimation of our manufacturing industries.

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>>