Kiwiblog

I’ve previously blogged on whether specials may change any allocation of List MPs. The other question is whether any seats held by narrow majorities could change due to specials. The answer is yes, but unlikely.

The most marginal seat is New Plymouth – Jonathan Young got 48.6% of the vote to 47.6% for Harry Duynhoven. There were 32,029 valid votes. There are 2,351 known specials for the seat and we estimate 1/70th of the 32,000 overseas specials, so the numebr of specials is predicted to be 2,808.

The specials would have to be 6.1% better for Labour and worse for National for Harry to win. Or in other words they would need to go Harry’s way 53.7% to 42.5%.

In Auckland Central Nikki Kaye beat Judith Tizard by 1,181 votes. However there are a large 6,420 specials plus overseas votes. Niiki beat Judith 43.0% to 38.8%. Judith would need to win the specials 49.5% to 32.3% to close the gap.

In Christchurch Central, Nicky Wagner would need specials to go her way 53.3% to 32.2% – 12.1% better than on the day.

New Plymouth looks to be the only seat which could seriously change, and even that isn’t very likely.

Danyl has been busy, I do not know where to start.

We have Maori Party split over Coalition Deal

The Maori Party have been offered entrenchment of the Maori seats and a review of the Foreshore and Seabed Act in exchange for fifty of their young every month for three years. …

It is understood that Sharples is deeply opposed to the proposed scheme while Tariana Turia is a strong advocate for Key’s right to hunt, kill and mount unemployed Maori youths, describing it as enhancing his rangatiratanga and sending a strong message to young Maori that if they study and work hard they will not be cut down in their prime by Key’s poison-tipped crossbow bolts or torn apart by his pack of savage dogs.

A resolution to the impasse was reached late last night, when the Maori party co-leaders met for a cup of tea to confront the problem. After a short, congenial discussion Dr Sharples drained his mug of Earl Grey and then slumped to the floor unconscious.

And Tizard dismisses ‘rogue election result’:

Outgoing Auckland Central electorate MP Judith Tizard has assured staff and family that she will not be stepping down as an MP in spite of her loss to National Party candidate Nicky Kaye in last weekends General Election.

‘I certainly never heard anything about any election,’ Tizard told the Dim-Post this morning. ‘And if there was something like that going on I like to think I’d be one of the first to know.’

Upon being informed of the results Tizard was quick to dismiss their significance.

‘I don’t think this represents the true wishes of the people of New Zealand or the people of Auckland Central,’ Tizard said. ‘This is clearly a rogue election result with no real impact that the media is beating up in order to sell more papers.’ …

Tizard has also confirmed that she will be maintaining her full contingent of staff and offices, rejecting the suggestion that she would now have to make her own dinner reservations and purchase her own plane tickets as ‘the worst kind of hate speech’.

Incoming National MP Nicky Kaye has advised she is negotiating a solution with Paliamentary Services, Tizard’s private secretary and an Armed Offenders unit.

Oh that was priceless.

The NZ Herald looks at Auckland Central, Epsom and Maungakiekie.

Auckland Central:

That is not troubling the motivated Kaye, who is running a vigorous and old-fashioned door-knocking campaign. National Party sources say that although raised in conservative Epsom and Kohimarama, she is more socially liberal and environmentally active than most in the party.

On the other hand, Tizard has more than 40 years of family political history and nous to draw on. Name recognition, strong links with the gay and other communities and being a junior minister in transport and the arts help. Then again, she has received criticism for her now-defunct role of Minister for Auckland Issues.

Epsom:

Worth, who became a list MP, is standing again, but says he is firmly concentrating on increasing National’s party vote of 58.5 per cent in 2005 to 70 per cent.

“How people decide to cast their constituency vote is an issue for them.”

With Act polling well below the 5 per cent threshold to gain list seats in Parliament, National needs Hide to win Epsom and hopefully provide two or more Act MPs for a National-led coalition.

Maungakiekie:

Labour is replacing one unionist (Mr Gosche is a former national secretary of the Service and Food Workers Union) with another, Carol Beaumont, secretary of the Council of Trade Unions. …

Samoan-born Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga is the National candidate. Not only is he among a new bunch of young, highly educated 28-to-45-year-olds offering new blood and values for National, but he is also part of an attempt to boost the party’s ethnic diversity.

I blogged a few days ago, quoting Colin Jackson who attended a meeting with Judith Tizard to discuss concerns over the new copyright law. The law requires ISPs to terminate Internet access to repeat copyright infringers, and there is a push on for this to mean those merely accused of copyright infringement, as opposed to those convicted of doing so.

Colin blogged:

Judith Tizard spent 30 minutes telling us why the change had to be made. She began by strongly expressing her anger that we had complained to her at this stage in the proceedings. None of us, she said, had been to see her before this on this topic. When we protested that we had worked with the Select Committee, which had removed this provision – and balanced it with one which made licence holders liable for false accusations – she said that this was completely inappropriate of the Select Committee, because Cabinet had already decided this was going ahead. We should not have been surprised, we were told, that this provision was reinserted by the government at the last minute before the bill was passed.

Now this story has been picked up on other blogs, including Boing Boing. Boing Boing is one of the top ten blogs in the world for readership. Millions of people read it. And this is what they have just read:

New Zealand’s copyright minister starts screaming when asked whether it’s fair to cut people off from the Internet on the basis of three unsubstantiated accusations of copyright infringement.

Boing Boing further note:

Of all the unreasonable and awful proposals to come out of the entertainment industry, none is so bad as the three-strikes rule, a rule that would leave everyday people vulnerable to having the connection that brings them freedom of speech, of assembly and the press, the link that connects them to family, school, work and government, terminated because someone, somewhere made three accusations of copyright infringement, without having to offer a shred of evidence.

What I found most interesting what as the viewpoint from Judith that it was “inappropriate” for a select committee to make changes to a bill which differ from what Cabinet agreed to. This is a novel way of looking at the role of Parliament.

Colin Jackson from the Open Source Society has blogged a meeting between ICT reps and the Government over the new legal requirement for ISPS to terminate someone’s Internet account purely on the basis of allegations of copyright infringement.

The clause in question was in the original bill, and removed by the Select Committee (unanimously) as unnecessary as ISPs already terminate for illegal activity. The Select Committee also added on a clause to penalise people (up to $100,000 fines) who made false allegations of copyright infringement. This was also unanimously agreed to.

The Government then introduced at the Committee of the House stage an Supplementary Order Paper that reveresed both these changes made unanimously by the Select Committee. They put back in the provision for an ISP to be forced to terminate a customer merely on allegations of infringement, and even worse removed the penalty for false complaints.

What I found interesting from Colin’s blog was this explanation for why it was put back in:

When it opened, Judith Tizard spent 30 minutes telling us why the change had to be made. She began by strongly expressing her anger that we had complained to her at this stage in the proceedings. None of us, she said, had been to see her before this on this topic. When we protested that we had worked with the Select Committee, which had removed this provision – and balanced it with one which made licence holders liable for false accusations – this was completely inappropriate of the Select Committee, because Cabinet had already decided this was going ahead. We should not have been surprised, we were told, that this provision was reinserted by the government at the last minute before the bill was passed.

That is an interesting view on the roles of Select Committee. That it is completely inappropriate of them to mack changes that go against Cabinet policy.

So why do we bother with select committees?

I blogged last week on the new copyright law, and how the provision about ISPs having to terminate Internet access for repeat infringers was causing huge problems.

The good news is the Government seems to be listening. IT Brief reports:

The government has bowed to unprecedented ICT industry pressure, announcing a four-month moratorium on Section 92A of its new Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act.

Communications minister David Cunliffe revealed the back-down during the InternetNZ TVNZ7 Internet Debate held on Tuesday night, saying the delay would give the industry and content providers time to come up with an alternative approach to controlling copyright on the internet.

The debate incidentially went really well I thought. Possibly could have been a bit shorter, but we had a good mixture of politics and policy. There was some generally good natured sparring that kept it interesting, but also some useful and interesting policy discussions around broadband, copyright, filtering etc.

From a technical point of view it was pretty seamless as we took questions from journalists, from the studio audience, from the online chat channel and also video questions through Skype. The InternetNZ staff and TVNZ staff and contractors did very well making it happen. Several people said they would like to see more debates with that interactive format.

Damien, Russell and Fran were all good at challenging the MPs, quite aggressively at times.

The funninest part for me was Maurice WIlliamson saying he had no idea why he voted for the new copyright law, as it is such a stupid law. I thought Maurice did very well, but in fact all four MPs did well with strengths in different areas.

You can view the video of the whole thing at debate.net.nz.

Anyway back to copyright. The Dominion Post also reports:

Paul Moreno, a spokesman for Justice Minister Judith Tizard, said a delay to regulations required to put the cut-off clause into force was being considered, and that the delay might be “endless”.

“Judith is of the mind that Internet access is almost a human right now, similar to water and electricity.”

But Ms Tizard then appeared to toughen her stance, stressing that the Government was concerned to protect copyright holders.

And it is important to protect copyright holders. But look at the gap between the possible interpretations:

Ms Tizard would not say whether the intention was that the cut-off threat should apply only to people who had been repeatedly convicted of copyright offences, or to those who had been accused of infringements by bodies such as the Recording Industry Association – indicating it had been left deliberately unclear.

“The intention of this provision is to provide a framework for the ISP industry and rights holders to develop an efficient and effective mechanism that is workable for both parties.”

Telecommunications Carriers Forum chief executive Ralph Chivers said if the former definition was used, that might be one solution.

But Recording Industry Association chief executive Campbell Smith said that would not be acceptable as it would require copyright holders to sue infringers to prove their guilt. “That is just impractical and ridiculous. I don’t think that is what was intended.”

Instead, ISPs should cut off customers who infringed copyright after notifications from rights holders, he said.

Losing your Internet access on the basis of unproven accusations is not a goer for me.

Danyl M has done many a fine satirical comment here, under the tagline The Dim Post. I’m delighted to have spotted he has set up his own Dim-Post blog. I suggest people subscribe to it.

His latest effort is on Judith Tizard’s interview:

‘I think my most significant achievement in the past eighteen years has been to serve as an MP for eighteen years,’ she said. ‘That’s not something you can achieve in just a few months. It takes at least a decade.’

Also he ponders what Helen Clark will do when she retires, with the top choice being:

Publish ‘Fisting Ian’, a weekly magazine featuring speculative stories about the sex life of reporter Ian Wishart

And also over the weekend he reveals how the Green Party will vote for Labour’s law to outlaw the Green Party:

The Labour Governments proposed bill to dissolve the Green Party took a step closer to being passed into law today after Green leaders Jeanette Fitzsimons and Russell Norman confirmed that they would vote in favour of the legislation.

The Environmental Electoral Vengeance Bill is currently before the Justice and Electoral select committee. If the law is bought into effect then membership of the Green Party will become a criminal offense punishable by ten years in prison and fines of up to three hundred thousand dollars.

‘This bill clears up many of the problems caused by potential Labour supporters casting their votes for inappropriate parties,’ Justice Minister Annette King announced during a pre-committee press conference. …

Green Party cooperation was critical to passing the controversial law. The National Party withdrew its support when Justice Minister King introduced an amendment incorporating National into the bill.

While the National Party will not be outlawed, votes cast in favor of the opposition party will be transfered to Labour and counted in their favor. Under current polling this will see Labour voted back into power with approximately 110 seats and able to govern alone. National leader John Key has condemned the bill and criticized King’s handling of the legislation, although he has confirmed that if he somehow becomes Prime Minister he will not seek to change the bill in his first term.

That one hits the mark on so many issues. Labour’s outrageous electoral gerrymandering. The Greens willingness to support Labour no matter what, and National’s tendency to condemn things but not change them

I’ve added The Dim Post to my blogroll as a Centre blog. Danyl is really a bit of a leftie, but his humour hits all sides, so in the centre he sits for now

Herald on Sunday did a profile yesterday on Auckland Central MP Judith Tizard. Judith is somewhat controversial, but I have to say that my professional dealings with her on Internet issues have always been cordial and constructive, and she has been a very regular attendee of the Parliamentary Internet Caucus.

I’m not sure though what her Cabinet colleagues will think of her description of Cabinet meetings:

But after 18 years in Parliament, Tizard’s never been a cabinet minister, despite putting herself forward in 1999. Again she shrugs it off, “Helen’s view was that I was more useful working across portfolios.”

But would she like to become one?

“Umm, no I don’t think so, it’s an awful waste of a Monday.”

I’ve heard many descriptions of Cabinet but a waste of a Monday has not generally been one of them!

Judith Tizard, as Associate Transport Minister, has ruled out any chance of dropping the speed limit to reduce carbon emissions. Good. Nice to see a firm decision from the Minister.

People may have noted over time how Labour seems to try and turn every Government opportunity into a partisan event for Labour. One disgraceful recent incident was the attempt to have a medal ceremony for bravery awards in the Labour Party Caucus room.

Murray McCully points out in today’s newsletter the Music Month launch this week:

New Zealanders are now familiar with the sense of entitlement that has become the hallmark of the Clark Labour Government.  Another little reminder of this most unlovely characteristic came this week with the launch of New Zealand Music Month.  Most would consider such an event an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the New Zealand music industry.  But for Judith Tizard and her colleagues it was merely another opportunity to utilise taxpayers’ funds to undertake a bit of gentle marketing for the Labour Party.

The New Zealand Music Commission receives over $1million a year from the taxpayers of New Zealand.  Some of these funds, no doubt, were used to host this week’s Music Month launch event in Wellington.  And a small clue as to the political character of the event may lie in the fact that the National Party spokesman on Arts and Culture, Christopher Finlayson, was not invited to an event hosted by a taxpayer-owned body – the NZ Music Commission.  Never mind.  We are sure that Mr Finlayson as a scholarly and courtly individual will most certainly not harbour a grudge if he finds himself as Minister for this body in six months time.

Stung by her shameful exclusion from the group of prime female vocalists who entertained the Labour Party Conference (the various nicknames for which do not bear repeating in a newsletter with such a cultured readership)  Ms Tizard was apparently determined to make amends.  She climbed onto the stage to accompany musician Chris Knox (yes, the same one you would have seen performing at Labour Party conferences). And witnesses report that she would indeed have made a valuable addition to the Labour Conference quartet.

Towards the end of the Knox/Tizard number, she was apparently joined by completely non-political and dispassionate media commentator Russell Brown (yes, the same one used by state television on channel 7), at the same time as Knox could be heard by the video microphones making a disparaging remark about National MP Katherine Rich.  All in all, another day in the life of the New Zealand Music Commission branch of the Labour Party.

This is not an isolated incident. People will recall the disgraceful behaviour towards Don Brash a couple of years ago at another government funded arts event.

The Dominion Post also has an article on the launch and reports on Judith’s response upon being told she failed music quiz (to be fair I am sure I would fail it also):

“I don’t know the details, honey; I just write the policy and ask for the money.”

Indeed. And very successful at it also – the asking that is.

Aaron Bhatnagar had Judith Tizard bail him up and tell him he was a disgusting individual. What did he do? Speculated ten years ago (yes ten years ago) to her niece about Judith and Mat Rata. Good God – that is holding a grudge.

Conservator Occidentalis notes that Grant Robertson may be breaching the Electoral Finance Act. How? His website is authorised by him, not by his financial agent. Now a candidate is his or her own financial agent until he or she appoints one, but Grant appears to now have one, as their details have appeared on other material.

Guido Fawkes has the wonderful screen shot of senior Labour Minister Harriet Harman appearing to back Boris Johnson for Mayor of London.

So how did this happen?

username : harriet
password : harman

Yes that was the username and password for her blog. Someone should be shot. Guido notes the Government is looking to make it a criminal offence to be reckless resulting in loss of data!

Been meaning to blog on this since the changes to the Copyright Act were passed on Tuesday with all but the Greens and the Maori Party against. It would be a very very close call, but if I was a (non whipped) MP I would probably have voted against as the law is so inconsistent. The major points:

• One can now legally format shift music (say from a CD you purchase to an Ipod), but music labels can opt out of allowing this in their sale conditions.
• However you can not format shift other works, such as a movie from a DVD to your laptop or to a Video Ipod.
• It is legal to record a TV programme to watch it later, but you can only legally keep it for as long as is reasonable to have viewed it at a more convenient time.
• ISPs have been given an exemeption for their technical operations, such as caching files, which in theory can breach copyright.
• Content Hosters though have only limited liability for material uploaded by their customers. If they receive a complaint alleging a copyright infringement, the ISP becomes liable unless they delete the material. This means in the case of disputes, the ISP has to act as Judge and Jury or risk being sued, and there is some evidnece from overseas that (for example) the Church of Scientology uses such copyright laws as a way to silence critics.
• A “notice and notice” regime was rejected in favour of the US style “notice and takedown described above. The NaN regime would have meant that if a content hoster receives a complaint, they must pass it onto their customer. If the customer does not respond or agrees to remove the material, then it is taken down. However if the customer disputes they are infringing copyright, then the ISP is not held liable, but merely provides the customer’s details to the complainant so they can negotiate or sort it out in court directly.
• The law enshrines special protection for technological protection devices, even though they can sometimes restrict people from legal actions such as making backup copies, or format shifting. TPMs are hugely unpopular and most of the music industry are dropping them.

Has been lots of comments in various areas. First of all Canadian Professor Michael Geist (a expert and advocate for fair use copyright laws) says the law isn’t great but a lot better than what was planned for Canada. He thinks the parts dealing with circumventing TPMs are pretty good.

Steven Price has an excellent post on the notice and takedown regime, its strengths and weaknesses.  I think the Minister, Judith Tizard, has also indicated they will look in future at stronger fair use provisions, which could help.

Russell Brown blogged on the law also.  InternetNZ (I chaired their working group on this issue) calls it a missed opportunity, which it is.

On the bright side, the MPAA is looking a movie download site in NZ, where people can purchase movies. This is a laudable idea, as it is important that people are given legal avenues to access material. We have had the situation in the past where one could not purchase music legally for your Ipod in NZ, and where popular TV shows are not available here for months and months after they show overseas.  The world is a global market, and making works available globally for legal purchase and download will help reduce illegal downloads.

After some searching (the Parliament website could do with a new content page), I’ve found the full return for MPs as at 31 January 2008, which has been in the media yesterday and today.

Items I found interesting:

• Jim Anderton makes us invest our money in Kiwibank, while he puts his money into the Commonwealth Bank of Australia – one of those foreign banks he used to rail against
• Steve Chadwick has a family trust called the “Gonzo Family Trust”
• Helen Clark owns five houses. One of those “rich pricks” pushing up house prices.
• John Key got tickets to the RWC Semi-Final
• Winston owns no house in Tauranga (he now lives in Auckland)
• Judith Tizard has shared ownership of a house in Coromandel. With whom?