Backbencher

I found myself paging through the New Zealand Herald this morning to see if any new revelations had taken place with alleged piece of paper that cost Telecom a billion dollars. Would you believe that they had another article printed on this story? This one was titled, "Brash calls for select inquiry into broadband leak." National Party leader Don Brash is calling for an inquiry as to how this Cabinet paper got out costing Telecom now, close to $1.8 billion. Apparently, "The Government's decision to force Telecom to open its network to rival companies was to have been part of the May 18 budget." “Dr Brash told his party's Canterbury/Westland Regional Conference in Picton today that the leak "could only have come from one of Helen Clark's inner circle." The response to that was, "And Helen Clark can hardly complain, because it's she who's set the ground rules; it's she who's set the appallingly low standards for this administration." I am starting to wonder if these last few articles about this government leak are not just an attention grabber. It is starting to sound like a comical soap opera, and I almost cannot believe that the articles written for this newspaper are even being printed. In another article that caught my eye this morning apparently they are having banking issues as well. The article, "Man Charged $12m for bank card" outlined how a man who saw an ad for a personalized bank card for $9.95 ended up paying much more than that. I am assuming that when the man tried making another small purchase they told him he was over his limit leading him to call the bank to find that he was charged $12.18 million for a $9.95 personalized bank card. How do you not read this stuff and laugh? I know that America is notorious for things like this, but New Zealand. I don’t see New Zealand as a nation that is capable of this type of behavior, but I have been proven wrong before.