Kiwiblog

I understand the Attorney-General, Chris Finlayson, Prime Minister, John Key has announced that S92A of the Copyright has been delayed by Order in Council until 27 March.

If agreement on the TCF code can’t be reached by then (presumably between the TCF and the three main rights holders groups), then it may remain suspended.

Great to see National take action on this issue, after listening to concerns. And also well done to all those involved in highlighting the problems with S92A, especially the positions being taken by certain rights holders groups that they should be allowed to both make the complaints, and adjudicate on its validity.

The Herald profiles the new Attorney-General Christopher Finlayson:

“I’ve always thought it was a really interesting job. As I’ve got involved in law more and more, you see that the poor old Attorney-General is the most-sued person in the realm and you see the sort of responsibilities he or she has.

“It’s an ancient office and it has huge responsibilities. I regard it as, frankly, the highlight of my career to get the job.”

Chris will be a very popular choice within the legal fraternity. He is or was a member of the High Court’s Rules Committee and has appeared before the Privy Council close to a dozen times.

An advocate for constitutional convention, Mr Finlayson says he has a “pragmatic rather than an emotional view” on republicanism. His own view is that “the time will come” for New Zealand, especially given Australia’s move in that direction under the Rudd Government.

“I’m very loyal to the current monarch but I’d be in the camp that says on the demise of the Queen there will be a number of countries in the Commonwealth that will be reviewing their constitutional arrangements and that’s probably a good thing. If so, it won’t be an anti-British thing. It’s just New Zealand’s evolution as a country.”

Sounds sensible.

Mr Finlayson is also likely to be involved in any review of electoral finance laws after his party repeals the Electoral Finance Act, although the exact plans are “something the Cabinet will have to look at”.

“What I really disliked about that act was this notion of third parties, that the public and representatives of the public were some kind of interlopers into the political game which was really for the politicians.

“I found that profoundly offensive. We are the servants. It’s the public’s electoral system.”

Absolutely. Labour and its allies tried to hijack it for their own gain.

It was also “atrociously drafted”. For the law reform fanatic who has worked for 30 years to become the Attorney-General, that is perhaps its worst sin of all.

Is there a word beyond atricious?

The deadline for filing historical (prior to 1992) Treaty of Waitangi claims is at midnight tonight.

Claimants have had over 20 years to file their claims, so the deadline is far from hasty as the Maori Party claim. Indeed as Chris Finlayson says, there needs to be an end to litigation at some stage.

The Waitangi Tribunal has been publicising the deadline and has generated several hundred claims. I honestly doubt a single genuine claim has not managed to be filed.

The good thing about today, is that from tomorrow on the number of unresolved historical grievance claims can only start reducing. God knows how long it will take to consider and hopefully resolve them all, but we will have a known number of claims for the Tribunal and Government to work through.

Dr Cullen has done a sterling job in advancing Treaty settlements since he took over from Mark Burton. If National win the election, they should aim to match Dr Cullen’s pace. Luckily they have considerable resources to call on:

• Chris Finlayson, who speny many years as Ngai Tahu’s lawyer and is very knowledgable in this area
• Tim Groser, one of NZ’s top negotiators (and the settlements are very much a negotiation)
• Georgina te Heuheu, a former member of the Waitangi Tribunal

Of course premature to speculate on what portfolios, MPs may get, but just wanting to show that the work of resolving historical grievances should continue, and settling such grievances in fair, full and final settlements is a win-win.

Later this morning is a final panel session on MMP. One of the panelists, Chris Finlayson, can’t make it due to select committees – so I was asked last night if I would be a replacement.

I stupidly said yes, before checking who else was on the panel.

Sir Kenneth Keith is on the panel. Not only is Sir Kenneth arguably our most emiment jurist (he now sits on the International Court of Justice), he was on the original Royal Commission on the Electoral System. Great I get to look stupid in front of NZ’s most emiment jurist!

Now don’t get me wrong. I like to think a know a fair bit about electoral law and MMP. Possibly more than 99% of the population. But everyone in the room is in the other 1%!

Grant Robertson comments on the suggestion by Te Pumautanga o Te Arawa that all future Finance Ministers should also be Treaty Negotiation Ministers also.

Dr Cullen has made admirable progress, and should be congratulated for it. I suspect his job was made easier by the fact that he got to replace Mark Burton who showed the same skills at Treaty Negotiations as he did with Electoral Finance.

I would not tie the job into the Finance Minister job (even though Bill English would do a fine job) but I agree with Grant you do want Ministers who are motivated to do the job and have some mana. National has at least three people who could contribute very well to the portfolio.

Chris Finlayson is the current spokesperson and has worked in the Treaty area professionally before he entered Parliament, and has good relations with many prominent Iwi leaders. Georgina te Heuheu is a former member of the Waitangi Tribunal, and was NZ’s first female Maori lawyer. The other person whom I would advocate should be included (I think the portfolio is important enough one should have one or maybe two associate Ministers) is Tim Groser. Tim is a highly experienced negotiator in the trade field, and at the end of the day a large component of Treaty settlements is a commercial negotiation.

The NZ Herald reports:

The Electoral Commission is seeking advice on whether personal websites that carry political opinions should be treated the same as blogs under the Electoral Finance Act.

The law exempts from election rules “the publication by an individual, on a non-commercial basis on the internet of his or her personal political views (being the kind of publication commonly known as a blog).”

Electoral Commission chief executive Helena Catt said it was unclear how wide the exemption was and whether it included personal websites that did not necessarily take the blog format…

Dr Catt said the commission hoped to clarify the law soon and would meet in early April to discuss advice on a range of online areas, including whether political parties’ websites had to abide by the rules for election advertisements.

It does indeed seem ludicrous that the law discriminates based on the type of technology a website uses.  But sadly this is not some drafting error, but a deliberate decision supported by Labour, NZ First and the Greens.

The Departmental Report (Para 306) advises not to broaden the exemption:

The aim of this provision is to make it clear that the publication by an individual of their personal political views on the internet in the form of  “blog” or “weblog” (which is a form of online diary) does not amount o an election advertisement. The provision is broad enough to cover all such blogs, including generic online diaries on particular websites, such as (for example) www.blogspot.com; www.myspace.com; www.facebook.com.

So the officials’ advice was very much that this applies only for views published in the form of a blog.

And National MP Chris Finlayson put up an amendment which would have widened the exemption to:

the publication by an individual, on a non-commercial basis, on the Internet of his or her personal political views

And this was rejected by Labour, Greens and NZ First.

So the problem for the Electoral Commission, and Crown Law who presumably are advising them, is that they probably agree it is ridicolous that the law defining an election ad should vary depending on the type of technology used, but if they choose to interpret the law more liberally then they are flying in the face of what Parliament explicitly voted not to do.