Dene Mackenzie

Investor uncertainty about credit markets helped lift demand for Telecom Finance bonds, Forsyth Barr broker Ken Lister said yesterday.

National Party leader John Key would not be drawn yesterday on how his party intends funding tax cuts, which he told a Dunedin audience would be larger than Labour's.

An assured National Party leader John Key kept to the party message during a visit to Dunedin yesterday.

A strong family connection with the Labour Party prompted author Mary Logan to write the biography of one of Kurow's favourite sons, Sir Arnold Nordmeyer.

The National Party benefit policy was about "the richest people attacking the poorest people" in New Zealand, Prime Minister Helen Clark said in an interview yesterday.

A United States-based private investment firm with a shareholding of about 3% in Telecom is nominating two candidates to stand for election as directors of the company.

National Party leader John Key has returned to his party's roots by targeting the unemployed in a benefits policy he says will have an unrelenting focus on getting beneficiaries back to work.

South Island listed companies again outperformed the wider NZX-50 during the three months ended June, according to the Deloitte South Island Index.

Corporate raider and strategic investment company Guinness Peat Group PLC is selling its stake in Tower Australia Group Ltd to one of Japan's largest life insurers, Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Company.