29 November 2004

East Coast Bays Candidate In Labour’s Top Five

Hamish McCracken, Labour’s candidate for the East Coast Bays Electorate was placed at number five at the Party’s Auckland-Northland regional conference at the weekend. Competition for the top spots was especially fierce this time round and many in the Party see McCracken’s high placing as a strong vote of confidence in the thirty-two year old.

Next year’s election will be the third time McCracken has stood in East Coast Bays against National’s Murray McCully. In 1996 East Coast Bays must have been considered one of National’s safest seats with over 17,000 votes between the Labour and National candidates. In 2002 this majority had been slashed to 1500.

McCracken who is currently studying for a PHD in politics and lecturing in economics and politics at AUT hopes 2005 will see him off to Wellington for a more hands on experience in the political arena.

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>>