Wed, 07 July 2004

Media Release

Ministry Data Shows Sharp Increase In Dpb Numbers July 7, 2004

Answers to United Future's Parliamentary Question 2899 show that 119,293 people were receiving the DPB at July 1, 2004.

"This is significantly higher than we have previously been led to believe," said Lindsay Mitchell, petitioner for a Parliamentary review of the DPB.

"The Ministry of Social Development's Fact Sheet for March 2004 gave a figure of 108,569. Although that figure did not include 583 sixteen and seventeen year-olds, who fall outside of the working age definition, that difference alone does not explain this huge discrepancy."

"How on earth is the Ministry to assess the effectiveness of its new 'social development' approach when its own data is so erratic?" Mrs Mitchell asked.

"Can the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment, Rick Barker, please explain what is going on?"

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>>