"We have a Mafia-like government" announced Libertarianz leader Peter Cresswell today, "who prefer the big stick to moral persuasion. Not content with promoting Radio Boo Boo - that tax-victim funded concept for a state-run youth radio station - and not content with regulating what competing private radio stations might broadcast, Broadcasting Nanny Boo Boo Hobbs is now bullying Sky Television into giving TVNZ access to its decoders.

"This is simply fascism" proclaims Libertarianz Leader Peter Cresswell. "Boo Boo demands that unless Sky allow the state-controlled television broadcaster access, the Labour/Alliance minority coalition government would regulate forcing it to do so! This backs up what Hobbs said before the 1999 election, when she threatened "there is always the big stick" for recalcitrants who don't follow her 'advice.'

"Sky Television was set up in 1990, by entrepreneurs and private investors, in a market that for 29 years was monopolised by Television New Zealand. Eleven years later, TVNZ's owner demands that Sky hand over access to the technology it has purchased!" uttered an outraged Cresswell.

"Sky has been an overwhelming success, without one cent of tax-victim funded loot, and it has been successful without any protection from competition. Is that why Hobbs and Clark hate it so much? Or is it because Sky is taking viewers away from their beloved state broadcaster by broadcasting what people want to see!" wonders Cresswell after a square-eyed weekend in front of the Sky Sports' feed.

"New Zealanders have voluntarily supported Sky in great numbers; they pay by choice for the many channels of sports, documentaries, entertainment and news it broadcasts, but they rejected paying for the TV licence fee. This should demonstrate that when given a free choice people will put their money into what they want, whether or not Nanny Hobbs and Clark think it is good for them!"

"Libertarianz would privatise TVNZ immediately and stop bullying business" declared Cresswell, but he warned "this Mafia-like attitude by Comrade Nannies Hobbs and Clark of 'give-us-what-we-want-or-we-will-force-you-to' is endemic to this Government".

"Be warned, your business could be next!"

It's enough to make you vote Libertarianz!

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>>