We have just spoken at a GreyPower Superannuation Forum to outline what New Zealand First will do for seniors. We made five commitments:

1. Increase the rate of New Zealand Superannuation.

2. Subsidise winter power bills.

3. Extend the SuperGold Card to include more discounts on more items that make up the cost of living.

4. Make our communities safer.

It’s a good question.

In recent weeks, we have witnessed one of the most systematic and dirtiest smear campaigns in the history of New Zealand politics. And many media outlets and their journalists have been either wittingly or unwittingly complicit. The near hysteria with which some journalists and right-wing blog sites have written about these allegations and back-slapped each other is almost laughable. The fact remains that nothing outside the laws has occurred involving New Zealand First.

They are clearly worried about the role New Zealand First will play after the election. How else to explain the recent systematic campaign of hysterical allegations against myself and the party?

As we said earlier in the day, Pharmac’s decision to once again decline funding for a 12 month course of the breast cancer drug Herceptin is nothing short of a disgrace. The fact that it continues to deny New Zealand women an internationally standard treatment that is available in virtually every other OECD country is shameful, and yet another example of the public being let down by our drug buying agency.

Speech in Parliament Wednesday 6 August (you can view it online here) …

Madam Speaker —-Today we move from Alice in Wonderland to the Wizard of Id taken appropriately from the Dominion Post.

And I quote:

“6 o’clock and time for lies, distortions and half truths…

“What happened to the news?