Twice in one day ...

It's not often that I agree with Labour Ministers twice in a day. But it happened on Monday.

First, Prime Minister Helen Clark and Finance Minister Michael Cullen ruled out removing GST on food items, but instead explained that tax cuts would be a better mechanism for relieving pressure on household budgets.

Then, in the evening I attended a panel discussion on whether there should be tighter regulation of television programming to reduce the depiction of sex, violence and anti-social behaviour on television, including having one censorship/complaints office for television, film, radio, advertising, video games, etc to ensure consistency.

Predictably, Independent MP Gordon Copeland wanted to tighten up the rules so you wouldn't see anything that might upset the sensitive. He was very enthuastic about giving away free porn filters to every family.

Green MP Sue Kedgley talked a lot about advertising of unhealthy food and obesity. Every time she talked about children viewing inappropriate television she would always bring her comments back to obesity.

Chris Findlayson from National stuck to the topic, and talked about the different regulators and how effective (and ineffective) they are, and defended the current system.

But when Trevor Mallard spoke, he put it simply. If you don't like what you see or hear, every television, computer and i-pod has an off button. And then followed that up with saying parents need to be responsible for ensuring that children are not watching inappropriate programming.

Which sounds like common sense to me.