CTU Media Release

26 February 2013

Hobbit sunshine welcome

The release today of another group of Hobbit documents is welcomed by the CTU and we thank the Ombudsmen for ordering they be made available.

Helen Kelly, CTU President says "the documents confirm that the dispute was settled on the 18 October well before Warners came to New Zealand and before Wellington film workers were told on 20 October that they should demonstrate to lift the boycott. Minister Gerry Brownlee now needs to explain to the public why he too joined in this fiction."

"Clearly the Government and Warners chose to retain this fiction to justify the deal they subsequently made, including the huge unfairness of changing employment law. The documents confirm that Mr Brownlee was of the view the laws should not be changed but despite this went ahead with the law change."

"We now call on the Government to release the final bit of information, the legal opinion it received from Crown Law on this dispute. There is no reason that this is not being made available."

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On Failures Of Care For Those With Mental Disabilities

Hard to imagine a more disturbing insight into the treatment of the vulnerable than the Health Ministry report on Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau. The Ministry has found that the country’s only kaupapa Maori intellectual disability residential care provider has been “seriously dysfunctional.”

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