Further on S92A
February 19th, 2009 at 1:47 pm by David FarrarI was pleased to see Labour’s Clare Curran ask a question in Parliament yesterday on S92A. While Labour are still being somewhat non commital on what they would do, it is encouraging that they understand the concern enough to start asking questions about it. I am hoping their edging away from S92A will cotinue!
Also kudos to Peter Dunne who accepted the petition today at Parliament. I understand ACT regard S92A as a huge compliance cost on business and are also unsupportive of it. And the Greens have admirably always opposed it.
The more I think about S92A, the more it reminds me of the Electoral Finance Act. They have certain things in common:
- Both were appallingly unclear
- Both generated significant opposition from the public, due to concerns over their rights being infringed
- Both did not and will not be as bad as people fear, but will still have a “chilling effect” due to the lack of clarity, and the severity of the potential penalty (termination of Internet access)
- Both have pissed off enough people, that they will engender a culture of complaints to test the law
What I mean by No 3 is worth elaborating on. In reality S92A is not going to leads to scores of NZers having their Internet access cut off. Just as the EFA did not lead to dozens of NZers going to prison for advocating against the Government. So yes the opposition (including me) does tend to focus on a worst case scenario for dramatic effect.
But just because the worst case scenario is unlikely, does not mean there are no negative consequences. MPs would do well to recall the words of the Electoral Commission on how the EFA had a “chilling effect” on political dialogue. Stuff such as doing parodies of political party billboards could end up with you getting infringment notices against your Internet account. Is an ISP going to decide whether or not a parody is fair dealing or not?
The other danger is the culture of complaints that it will engender. I am hearing all sorts of stories that people will be filing copyright complaints against Government websites, political parties, even blogs.
A lot of the best satire and parody on You Tube involves using something that is copyrighted. Whether or not it is “fair use” or “fair dealing” as allowed for under the law is not always an easy call.
Anyway Juha Saarinen at Geekzone has blogged an e-mail by lawyer Rick Shera on how the NZ law is significantly worse than even the law in the United States.
So far 12,000 people have signed the CFF petition against S92A. Many of those signing are artists themselves.
Related posts:
- The return of s92A
- Dunne compares s92A to EFA
- NZ Herald on Catt’s comments on EFA
- Campbell Smith on s92A
February 19th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Im still waiting for the evidence to prove that this is a solution to a problem
Im mean wheres the evidence there is a problem that needs this level of intervention
Is this an exmaple of breaking a butterfly on a wheel?
Vote:February 19th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Or is this just more evidence if we need it that pollies and civil servants of all colours just have to be seen to be doing something anything no matter how dumbarse and stupid
they cant just get the hell out of our lives and stop interfering.
If they need something to do why dont they tackle the really big issues like going and interfering in all the dysfunctional families so called
\
Oh thats right they cant/wont do that Somesthing abiout rights blah blah blah
Well what about the rights of all the good citizens they interfer with
Message to pollies FOX TROT OSCAR when I need you I will whistle for you
Vote:February 19th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Rumour has it Clare Curran will seek leave to introduce a Member’s Bill today to amend s92A. Don’t know its contents, but it appears Labour are indeed moving on this. Will be interesting to see if there are any objections – there certainly won’t be from the Greens.
Vote:February 19th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
National should preempt this and amend this section themselves rather than be lumbered with another previous-administration dead-dog. They got enough of those already.
Vote:February 19th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Yeah, now I’ve seen the Bill, it really was just a buying more time exercise to deflect attention away from Labour’s stuff-up. Clare could have done far better, but I still don’t understand why the Nats refused leave for its introduction – surely her amendment is better than the law as it stands.
Vote:February 19th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Good to see the heroic Labour freedom fighters attempt to stand up to the socialist plans of the National government.
Who’d have thought, eh?
Vote:February 20th, 2009 at 1:03 am
National don’t need no stinking Labour Member’s Bill, especially one from a hack like Curran.
Vote:February 20th, 2009 at 2:06 am
Succinctly put OECD.
Vote:February 20th, 2009 at 9:07 am
David, you said “Both generated significant opposition from the public”.
Clearly, at least in respect to Sec 92A, your definition of “significant” is somewhat different to the one I found in my dictionary.
148 signatures on a petition, 120 duct-taped protesters and 10,000 email addresses does not constitute “significant” when compared to the population of NZ.
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