I’ve been in Tokyo to attend the Asia-Pacific Internet Governance Forum. I’ll blog more on the whole conference, but just thought I would blog the comments I made on a panel discussing international Internet governance issues. This is a big issue, that I’ll be blogging more on.

I only decided to attend this forum on Monday evening. To be able to attend, all I had to do was go to the APIGF website and fill in the form. That was it. No one had to approve my attendance. No one asked what were my credentials to have a voice here. No Government approved my attendance. I simply said I want to have a say, and I was allowed to turn up and participate.

The same applies to many other meetings of Internet governance bodies such as the IETF and ICANN.

I think it is one of the strengths of our current governance arrangements for the Internet that there are no barriers for an individual like myself to be involved. I do not gain my income directly from the Internet, so have no direct commercial interest in it. I simply appreciate the fact that it has given me a voice.

As a comparison I thought I would try and register to attend the World Conference on International Telecommunications. So I went to the ITU website. Sadly there is no online registration to attend WCIT. It seems you have to be invited to attend!

I wondered if I could get invited to attend. There were two categories – member states and other organisations. I did consider declaring myself an independent country – the Republic of David, but was worried this may invalidate my New Zealand passport. So I clicked on the link for “other organisations”.  It came up with an invitation letter in six languages. I clicked on the English one and it asked me for my TIEs login and password.  I don’t even know what TIES stands for, so I guess I’m not going to be able to get an invite.

Even the link listing information for participants is password protected. I then tried to get the agenda – again you need a password.

I then tried to join the ITU, but there were two barriers to this. The first is individuals can not join, the second is that to even be an observer would cost me 11,000 US dollars.

I could carry on, but I think you get my point – the ITU operates in almost a polar opposite fashion to our traditional Internet governance bodies, including forums such as this. 

Now things are improving slightly with the ITU. They recently had a Council meeting. The list of participants is secret, as was the agenda, and the minutes. However they did resolve that an agenda for the WCIT would be placed on their website, and they would allow online comments on it.

Now this initiative is an improvement, and I welcome it. But it seems to be akin to a communication from an alien planet. For on Planet Internet we don’t need to have a meeting to decide whether or not an agenda can be made public. Our agendas are public, our participants are public, our proceedings are public. In fact they are generally webcast live over the Internet so anyone in the world can observe and sometimes participate.

So I see the potential involvement of the ITU in Internet governance as a threat to a free Internet in four ways. 

Firstly, as I have already stated individuals are locked out and not seen as stake-holders.

Secondly as we heard yesterday from Robert Pepper, some of the proposed changes to the ITRs threaten a free Internet by seeking to impose a telco charging model on Internet traffic. It costs me $3 a minute to call back home, and I would rather not also have to pay $3 an e-mail also.   Last week in New Zealand a telco executive complained that his revenues were declining and that the inability to extract payment from over the top players was ‘a global problem’.  For the next half hour the audience wanted to know why he thought the telco should be paid twice and that if he was unhappy with the market working as it should, why he wasn’t focused on innovation?

Thirdly many participants at the ITU appears to support new barriers to new forms of trade.  The free flow of data between nations lifts prosperity for everyone – call centres in New Zealand, and presumably in other countries need access to data from overseas to provide good customer service; manufacturers needs swift orders and suppliers; families spread across different countries want to be able communicate over video and share information cheaply, quickly and easily. Extra tarriffs and barriers on data are bad for the economy as a whole, not just consumers.

Fourth and finally, and for me most importantly, some of the ITR proposals threaten free speech on the Internet. I think it is entirely appropriate that each country governs what their citizens can say or do on the Internet, within the bounds of international law on freedom of expression but I do not think it is appropriate that one country can vote on what citizens in another country can say on the Internet. As much as I would like to be able to pass a law so no Australians can continue to claim they invented the pavlova, I would not welcome Australia passing a law forbidding New Zealanders from mentioning the great race horse Phar Lap was born in New Zealand.

So as a great fan of the Internet, I hope other fans of the Internet will talk to their Governments and ask them to vote against the proposals at WCIT which would damage the Internet. The decentralised open and transparent governance model for the Internet is not a bug that needs fixing, but is a critical part of why the Internet has been the success story it is. 

Robert Pepper is a vice-president of Cisco, and I am getting off him some of the details about proposed changes to the ITRs, or International Telecommunications Regulations. Some of them are hugely significant.

Rebecca Kamm writes in the Herald:

 Nonetheless, it might be a relief to a few of you that ladies really can get a sweet bargain out there if they play their cards right. Like in Southern China, where women get half-price entry into the Guilin Merryland Resort fun park if they wear a mini-skirt shorter than 38 centimetres.

The discount scheme is a marketing campaign called “Love Miniskirt” and will run for two months. Local television showed female visitors in miniskirts queuing at the park’s entrance as staff measured their skirts with rulers. Also, staff had to break the news to women in short shorts and dresses that ONLY MINISKIRTS SORRY.

I may be wrong, but I suspect the park ended up with more revenue, due to a higher than normal number of male patrons attending.

Li Wenxing, deputy manager of the park, told Shanghai Dailythat “The stipulation aims to encourage female visitors to showcase their beauty in summer.” He also said that “Love Miniskirt”, which has been running every year since 2007, really gets the punters into the park. Which, incidentally, holds a “water splashing festival” at the same time – and throwing water at mini-skirted women is very much a part of that.

Sounds almost as much fun as La Tomatima!

It’s not the first time a Chinese event has drawn in the women with fruity discounts. Last year, virgins were offered free entry into the Zhouluo Wild Osmanthus Fragrans Festival in Changsha, which celebrates the osmanthus fragrans, or tea olive (and compares it to a “pure and simple female”). The virgins had to be at least 22 years old – and who knows how anyone was supposed to know that they’d never done it – but there you go.

I doubt you could do such a festival in Huntly.

Lance Wiggs blogs:

A group of academics signed off on a letter against school league tables. The stated logic may work in an academic research setting but is inappropriate to apply to the real world. We should instead publish the measurements, improve the measurements and their context over time and, most importantly, focus energy and resources on understanding the issues and helping the schools at the bottom of the league.

Exactly. If data is not perfect, them people with a genuine interest in giving parents information and choice will focus on how to improve the data, not call for it to be suppressed.

Some of the more detailed responses:

The argument is that schools have high variability between each other and across years. It’s a combination of measurement error based on inconsistent and low samples and the national standards only measuring numeracy and literacy and not more holistic skills.

However to improve something we first need to measure it, and if we can’t measure it accurately then an approximation will do. In business that means using surveys of customers that have clear sampling bias, reacting more to customers who complain and even believing what we read in the papers. We know all of these sources are incomplete and have bias, but we can account for it somewhat, and are much improved by using the input. The online advertising industry is a lovely example, using a system for measurement that is clearly wrong to measure traffic, but while it is wrong, it is wrong for everyone, and it’s only the starting point for a conversation.

It’s far easier to start a conversation about the quality of a school when confronted with a combination of the socieoeconomic data about the catchment area and the National Standards results over time.

Exactly. Parents are not morons. Few are going to just look at a league table and say we’re going to decide solely on that. Information on how schools are doing with national standards will be just one of many inputs.

I understand the natural academic reluctance to never release data that is potentially wrong, and I see that in business sometimes where companies do not want to release an imperfect product. But while they are polishing the bezels yet again competitors are releasing their inferior but higher selling versions. Similarly we should release the data, and call on the power of academics, hundreds of thousands of parents and even students to provide both sunlight as a disinfectant and the right context.

The answer to bad data is good data, not suppressing all data.

While even a small minority, and this is not a small minority, wants access to our data, New Zealand has a policy and obligation to provide it. Arguing against releasing data is quite remarkable for a group of academics. It should be easier to understand school performance than to read about individual student’s private lives on Facebook.

Most academics support the Official Information Act as a wonderful thing. Educational academics seem to regard it as a bad thing.

Fortune reports:

FORTUNE –Marissa Mayer, the Google (GOOG) executive who today was named Yahoo’s (YHOO) new chief executive, is pregnant.

Mayer told Fortune exclusively that her first child is due October 7. It’s a boy!

“He’s super-active,” Mayer told me in a phone call tonight, three hours after Yahoo announced her appointment. “He moves around a lot. My doctor says that he takes after his parents.”

Career-wise at least, Mayer, 37, has remained in one place for more than a decade. She was Google’s 20th employee and its first female engineer, ascending to her most recent post as vice president in charge of local and location services over a 13-year career.  …

Mayer first disclosed to the Yahoo board that she is pregnant in late June, in a meeting with Michael Wolf, a member of the board’s four-person CEO search committee. A meeting with the search committee followed, and then Mayer met with the full board last Wednesday. None of the Yahoo directors, she says, revealed any concern about hiring a pregnant chief executive. “They showed their evolved thinking,” says Mayer, who got the phone call last Thursday that she was the board’s choice to be CEO.

Excellent. Some people argue women don’t get hired for senior jobs, as people worry they will go off and have babies. There are probably a few people who think like that, so the fact the Yahoo Board hired a pregnant woman as their CEO is a great symbol of non-discrimination. They employed her, because they thought she was the best person for the job.

Morgan Godfery blogged a response to me on the Takamore case. He said:

There is a clash of laws. In New Zealand, and elsewhere, the common law position is that the executrix of the will (Miss Clarke) will prevail. Under Maori law, a majority opinion in the whanau will prevail. The wishes of the deceased and the deceased’ partner are, in most cases, subordinate to the wishes of the wider whanau.

The question then is, what law should prevail? In this particular case, I am comfortable with the common law position (or the western position) prevailing. Why? Well, because the deceased made it clear he wanted to lay in Otautahi (Christchurch) as did his children. However, in a situation where there is no explicit wish and the deceased is Maori, I think Maori law must prevail. These situations are rare and should be decided on a case by case basis.

I’m not necessarily against the wider whanau deciding, if there is no explicit wish from the deceased. I am very firm that the explicit wishes of the deceased should be paramount.

However I believe good laws deliver certainty.  People should know where they stand under the law, so they don’t break then. And this is where a law that say the wishes of a majority opinion in the whanau will decide, has problems. Who decides who counts in the whanau? Does an uncle or aunt count? How about cousins? Do children and partners get the same say as a second cousin? Do only Maori members of the whanau count? Does that mean the Pakeha partner doesn’t even get a vote?

If one seriously wants customary law to prevail, then you need to define it better. If you do not, then I think that significantly increase the number of disputes and potential for unilateral action.

The Press reports:

Betsy, Rose, Marvin, Gingy, Flicky and Borris: they may not sound like fitting names for eight-legged creepy-crawlies, but that is what Orana Wildlife Park staff have decided to name their latest additions.

For the first time, the park is now home to six sub-adult tarantulas.

Originally from England, the six spiders were passed on to the park last week by the Wellington Zoo. Head keeper of native fauna Alyssa Salton said the tarantulas were “settling in nicely”.

Yuck. They’d better not escape, or there will be hell to pay. Hopefully they are sterilisied and can not breed.

I do not like spiders or snakes. Unlike one of my friends who has the most incredible spider phobia (she will flee a room even from a daddy long legs – one day I should blog the story of how I conned her into watching the Return of the King, by denying there were any spiders in it), I just have a normally healthy dislike of them on the basis they can kill me.

It is one of the things I like about NZ – we have no animals that are killers. I mean sure piss a bull off, and it can be fatal. But no snakes, no particularly venomous spiders (yeah I know we have red backs but when did someone die from a bite last?), no lions, no tigers etc. We have a pretty safe country.

Now I know zoos have lions also, and they could also escape. But if a lion escapes the reality is it will be caught pretty quickly. But if those mofo tarantulas escape, I’ll be crossing Christchurch off my lists of places to visit unless they capture them all.

I was in the UK for a friend’s wedding during the inaugural Nethui in 2011, so the 2012 Nethui was the first one for me.

There were over 500 people in attendance, and I was really pleased that it was a preetty diverse group of people. It wasn’t just the usual suspects of the Internet techos and the policy wonks. There were teachers there interested in the Internet as an education tool. Farmers were there, librarians were there, game developers were there. Oh yeah, lawyers also 🙂

Organizing a conference with over 60 sessions (plus a bar camp at the end) is a massive achievement, and kudos to especially Richard Wood, plus also all the INZ staff, for delivering a high quality event. InternetNZ subsidise it by a six figure sum so that registration for it is only $40.

Should also mention the Showgizmo smartphone app. I found it pretty useful. It had the schedule for the conference in it, so very easy to check what was on. You could select which sessions you wanted to attend, and it would show you just those, and/or give you calendar reminders for them. It also had the names and twitter feeds for all 500 delegates. Plus as a bonus if you scanned in someone’s ID tag on your smartphone, then it would add them to your favourites. Could do with some tweaking to interface with programmes like Outlook more, but overall a pretty good app for event organisers and attendees to use.

I was involved in a few sessions. I chaired a session on copyright and the Internet which had around 300 people attend. The video will be on the website for those are interested. Some good discussion, and the best point made was by chance the last. One of the lawyers there (Rochelle) said that a lot of problems would be solved if copyright law changed from focusing on copying to use. I thought that was a great idea. The Internet is a giant copying machine, as is each individual PC. Having laws against copying is like having laws against eating.

But what you can do is have laws on use of copyrighted material. If for example you copy a movie you purchase, just so you have it on a backup machine – then that is fine. But if you copy it and give it to someone – that is an infringement. And if you copy it and sell the copy to someone – that is a criminal offence. Focus on use, not copying.

There was also a good session on harmful speech on the Internet and the Law Commission’s proposals for a Communications Tribunal to deal with some of it, chaired excellently by Judge Harvey.  I retain some reservations about what may be proposed, but am waiting to see the details.

On the margins of Nethui, we saw the launch of the Fair Deal campaign about the TPP. I am a strong supporter of genuinely free trade agreements and also a strong supporter of the Fair Deal campaign. The campaign is calling on the NZ Government to maintain its current negotiating position of rejecting the elements of the US proposed intellectual property chapter, where they would require a change to our current IP laws or policies. I’ll blog more on the campaign as it goes. Feel free to check out the campaign website, and NBR has a story on the launch also.

I also took part in a panel on Open Government. Sadly there was little time for questions as there were two opening speakers and then seven panelists. My major point was that we should now look at amending the OIA to require pro-active release of certain Government information (such as Cabinet papers) after a certain period of time (say six months). This is not intended to change the criteria for release, but to recognise that people do not know what they don’t know, and hence what to ask for. An automatic pro-active release would open up Government considerably. I may draft a members’ bill to this end when I get the time and see if a backbench MP wants to submit it. I also see this as good for Government too, as knowing that all papers will automatically be released will ensure due care is taken in their drafting and approval.

Overall I thought it was a fabulous event, mainly due to the quality of the people there and their willingness to engage. Sarah Putt from Computerworld did not have a good initial impression, but Lance Wiggs’ response is one I endorse.

Talking of one of the keynote speakers, Pamela Jones Harbour, I would make this point. No she was not a Lawrence Lessig, but what she did do was not just deliver a keynote address, but actually stayed for the whole conference and participated in many of the sessions. Personally I thought it pretty cool that a former US Federal Trade Commissioner stayed on and participated the way she did. Also notable was that Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff didn’t just turn up for one session, but was there for at least two days, and engaging in multiple sessions. Nethui isn’t like other conference where it is all about the keynote speakers (even though I agree they are important), but it is about the engagement.

UPDATE: Almost forgot the highlight. As part of the digital divide panel, we heard from Emma whose family had benefited from the computers in homes programmes. Emma told us her life story including losing her kids for a while, drugs, crime but how computers in homes had made such a big difference to her and her kids, and how well her family are doing now. She was on the verge of tears speaking about her mistakes (and speaking to 500 strangers is daunting for most people), and most of the audience were emotionally captivated. She got the sole standing ovation of Nethui, and made things very real.

Stuff reports:

A landmark British investigation into fracking has concluded that the controversial practice is safe with little risk to health and the environment.

The review, by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, says fracking can be managed effectively in Britain – as long as operational best practices are implemented and enforced through regulation.

I won’t hold my breath waiting for the Greens to say they no longer want it banned. I bet you than even if the NZ Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment comes out with the same conclusions, the Greens will ignore the science and maintain total opposition to it.

Stuff reports:

Year 9 students at a Nelson college will be required to bring their own electronic devices to school from next year, in a move the school says will “revolutionise” education.

Garin college is making the devices mandatory for students and has suggested four options with price estimates: netbooks at $300 to 500; laptops at $500 to $2000; MacBooks at $1500 to $2500; and iPads at $500 to $800.

Principal John Boyce said Garin had been researching the move for about three years, had consulted year-eight parents and was ready to take the plunge.

“I believe that if everyone has a computer, the way teachers teach and the way students will learn will be revolutionised.”

It will. I actually think you could start at Year 1.

Lessons and exercises for about 100 year nines would be delivered via a learning management system called Moodle, enabled by fast internet delivered by the Nelson Loop fibre-optic computer network system used by schools in the region.

Why we need fibre, not copper.

He said the move would lead to a “flipped curriculum”, where students would have a lot more control over their independent learning. They would read material put on Moodle by their teachers at night and come to school the next day with questions relating to what they had learned.

“Students will have all the information they need at their fingertips, so over the next few years there will be a real change in mindset. Education will no longer be about facts – it will be about students using facts, thinking, creativity and design.

“Even next year, I expect to see students deepening their understanding of what they learnt [the night before], rather than whole classes marching through material together.”

A group of about 25 student “guinea pigs” were already using electronic devices at school by choice.

“They love it. They know they’re going to be using [modern technology] for the rest of their lives, so why not start now?”

Jordan Howley, 15, said he enjoyed using his laptop because “we don’t have to concentrate so much on what the teacher is putting up on a PowerPoint when we can look at it on our own screens”.

Thinking, not repeating.

Boyce said no family would be turned away if they couldn’t afford an electronic device, with the school committed to helping families with financial constraints, possibly through sponsorship from its parish community.

Excellent.

Stuff reports:

The Government’s welfare reforms have become law but the controversial policy will continue to dog National, with a rowdy protest planned for the party’s annual conference at Sky City this weekend.

Teen beneficiaries will have their payments managed as soon as next month and new requirements for solo beneficiary parents to look for work will come into effect in October. Parliament passed the changes by 64 votes to 57 last night.

I honestly don’t think we do teenagers a favour by just handing the benefit over to an 17 year old, and saying here’s the money, now go away.  Likewise while we must have a welfare state that looks after children and parents who are left without enough financial support, we shouldn’t have a welfare state that encourages a sole parent on welfare to have further children.

The changes have been labelled an attack on the poor by beneficiary advocates, but the Government says it will modernise welfare and overhaul the system from a passive approach to an active, work-focused system.

Auckland Action Against Poverty and the Auckland-based student movement Blockade the Budget will picket National’s conference on Sunday in protest to the reforms.

Excellent, not the same without Sue Bradford there. I recall one conference in Dunedin where she charged into the church service, and one of Bolger’s staff did a very nice tackle on her. For years afterwards many delegates thought Todd was DPS, rather than a political advisor!

Auckland Action Against Poverty spokeswoman Sue Bradford said there were no jobs for beneficiaries to move into, especially those who could only work between the hours of 9am and 3pm, or who faced leaving their children at home alone after school.

In which case they will remain on the benefit. The requirement is to seek and be available for work – not to gain a job. Having said that, while there are not jobs for everyone on welfare – there are and will be jobs for some. The jobs market is fluid, not static. There are always vacancies coming up.

The Government failed to realise that parenting was a job in itself, she said.

It is a job, and hence generally no work-testing until the child is five.

Beneficiaries will also been given access to long-term reversible contraception.

How awful. That’s just like Nazi eugenics according to the Dom Post cartoonist Hodgson.

Back to Muriwai – the Australasian gannet (or Takapu)

click for larger, higher res image

Stephen Franks writes in NZ Herald:

The Auditor-General is unlikely to fix Auckland Council member Cathy Casey’s complaint that the council was kept in the dark on the V8 race subsidy. The law setting up the Super City deliberately created a presidential mayoralty and gave councillors no clear rights to information.

It certainly does not protect council officers who want to provide unbiased information to councillors against the wishes of their bosses, the chief executive and the mayor.

The law may have been drafted out of frustration with years of indecision fuelled by endless reporting and consultation as excuses for inaction. Perhaps the law’s designers chose to give elected dictatorship a go instead.

Not quite an elected dictatorship. The Mayoral powers are quite weak compared to say Boris Johnson’s. They are stronger than other NZ councils, but not that strong.

Amazingly till now there has been little publicised protest at the constitutional barbarity of this structure. Without clear rights to the same information available to the executive they must monitor, councillors become spare wheels.

Councillors have never had a right to all the information management has, as far as I know.

Some have called the Auckland governance structure the corporate model. If so it is a poor copy. The company model is robust about directors’ rights to oversee management. Directors have an almost unrestricted right to information from anywhere in the company. 

I agree that a company director has rights to see pretty much anything from the general ledger to the petty cash reconciliation. But there is a difference between commercial directors and elected officials.

The Auckland mayor holds central power in a hybrid Westminster/presidential system without separation of powers. Unlike all other mayors in New Zealand he is not first among equals. He is the boss.

More like a senior colleague. He can not sack a Councillor, and has the same vote as a Councillor. What the Mayor does get is the ability to appoint Committee Chairs and Committees and to propose the Budget.

Worse, there is no equivalent to central government’s State Services Commission code for state servants, or the parliamentary conventions that oblige officials to provide honest and impartial advice to MPs in a select committee, and protect them from senior wrath when they give it.

Current law requires councils to have a code of conduct for councillors. It should be extended to officers.

Not a bad idea.

Auckland badly needs a constitutional upgrade. Version 2 should enshrine the right of councillors to information. It should protect and constrain council employees along the lines of the State Services Commission code that guides public servants and protects the impartiality of their service.

Auckland Constitution 2 should also require council consultants to certify their work to councillors. They are now a vital part of local government quality control.

With intense competition and Auckland being the major employer of many consultants, the temptation is too great for consultants to tell council officers (who control where the next contract goes) what they want to hear.

All sounds sensible suggestions.

1. The participants in Victoria University’s Friday night Justice Hot Tub debate are with us live — Defence counsel, Greg King; Sensible Sentencing’s Garth McVicar; the father of Sophie — Gil Elliott and former ACT MP Stephen Franks on whether our criminal courts deliver justice and help prevent serious crime.
2. Live from Auckland’s Sky City, Finance Minister Bill English in a q&a sessions with delegates at the National Party conference. Colin James will be commenting through this.
3. Brian Edwards and Bill Ralston will be talking about the Crewe murders and recent TV programmes and books about them.

Broadcast on TV3 Saturday at 9.30 am, repeated on Sunday at 8 am with the media panel

My Herald column is on Labour’s proposal to give their members a vote for leader. I conclude:

So while the proposed changes by the NZ Labour Party to give their members a vote for future leaders is, in my opinion, a good thing, I do think it is regrettable they give the unions a direct vote. It would be far better if unions just encouraged their members to join Labour directly, than give unions voting rights for the leadership.

But overall the proposed reforms for Labour should result in a stronger party for them. It will be interesting to observe the first leadership election under their new rules, whenever that may be.

I was going to do a lengthy blog explaining the context of the comments by Judge Harvey which led to him recusing himself from the Dotcom extradition hearing – but Russell Brown has done it for me. The key part:

Tweeting the proceedings is actively encouraged at NetHui, and I relayed Judge Harvey’s lucid observation that:

The problem is not technology, the problem is behaviour. We have met the enemy and he is us. #nethui

At least twice, Judge Harvey smiled and firmly declined to comment when Kim Dotcom’s extradition case, which he was hearing, came up. I complimented him afterwards on the job he’d done. …

It wasn’t quite the end of the day for me. I’d agreed to stand in for Nat Torkington chairing a 6.30pm session announcing the launch of Fair Deal, a public awareness campaign about the potential threat to New Zealand consumer rights posed by the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement negotiations currently being undertaken by New Zealand, the US and several other countries.

Deep unease with the US stance on intellectual property chapter of the agreement is the default view in New Zealand. It threatens to drag us back into issues such as rights to temporary copies (ie: the right to use the actual internet), which have been settled for years in our soevereign copyright law.

My panel – Internet NZ policy lead Susan Chalmers, Neil Jarvis of the Royal Foundation of the Blind, Catalyst IT director Don Christie and Trade Me operations manager Michael O’Connell – discussed their objections. Don noted that the New Zealand officials negotiating on our behalf have thus far taken a pretty solid line.

David Farrar commented from the floor on government attitudes (also fairly sound but the temptation will always be there to compromise on edge issues just to get an agreement signed). And Judge Harvey was there too. He spoke about the US position on something else that has long been settled in our law – the right to own and operate a device a region-free DVD player. I’ll assume Hamish Fletcher’s transcript in his Herald story is roughly accurate:

Under TPP and the American Digital Millennium copyright provisions you will not be able to do that, that will be prohibited… if you do you will be a criminal – that’s what will happen. Even before the 2008 amendments it wasn’t criminalised. There are all sorts of ways this whole thing is being ramped up and if I could use Russell [Brown’s] tweet from earlier on: we have met the enemy and he is [the] U.S.

Fletcher’s story didn’t appear until the following Monday, five days later, – but when it did, it appeared in the lead position on the Herald’s home page, under the headline US ‘the enemy’ says Dotcom judge.

Inevitably, the story was picked up from there by internet news services as Megaupload Judge Calls U.S. “The Enemy”. In making a play on his own words, Judge Harvey had created a perception of bias that has eventually led to him opting to stand aside from the Kim Dotcom case. He has done the right thing. But it bears reiterating that he was not discussing the Kim Dotcom case at the time.

So the comment was a play on his own quote from earlier in the day, and as Russell says was not at all discussing the Dotcom case.

I think it is a pity, for all sides, at the outcome. As Russell outlined Judge Harvey is an expert on both copyright law (he chaired the copyright tribunal) and Internet law. I’m not suggesting the outcome of the extradition hearing will be different with a different Judge, but that public acceptance of the decision would have been very high with Judge Harvey – especially if it was that the requirements for extradition had been met.

Nathan Torkington has blogged on this also, as has Chris Keall at NBR.

Idiot/Savant blogs at NRT:

The Māori Party finally met with John Key last night to discuss his stupidity over water rights, and walked away with an assurance that the government will not legislate to overturn any court decision. In some quarters, this is being portrayed as another sell-out. It’s not. Instead, its a pretty useful victory, which resolves one of the primary fears around the Tribunal / court process: that the government will ignore the outcome, and simply confiscate the water on terms favourable to itself and its cronies if they don’t like how things are going. Now, if they keep their word, they won’t be able to do that, and will have to negotiate like a proper Treaty partner should. And that I think is exactly what the Māori Party is there to do.

While I don’t think National would ever have been stupid enough to repeat Labour’s folly of overturning court upheld property rights by legislation, it is indeed a useful thing for the Maori Party to have had it explicitly ruled out.

It doesn’t mean that the Government has to follow the recommendations of the Waitangi Tribunal. It does mean though if an actual court makes a finding about property rights in water, then the Government won’t confiscate those property rights legislatively.

Labour have not promoted very much one of the constitutional changes they are seeking to make, namely new rule 146B:

The Policy Platform is binding on all Party members elected to public office and on the Parliamentary Labour Party, the New Zealand Council and the Policy Council.

Previously the policy platform was only binding on members who stood on the Labour ticket. What this means is that Mayors such as Len Brown will be obliged to vote in accordance with the Labour Party policy platform in future. Brown is a member of the Labour Party, but did not stand as a Labour candidate.

I’d say this clause was drafted by the Maritime Union, a Labour Party affiliate member!

This means, if passed, that any Labour Party member who stands for any public office is bound to vote in accordance with the Labour policy platform. I’ve actually voted for some Labour Party members for local body elections – including in 2010. I won’t do so, if this passes as it means they will be servants of the party, not of their constituents.

Stuff reports:

The Boy Scouts of America will continue to deny membership to gay scouts and scout leaders, saying the policy would protect the rights of families that prefer to address issues of sexuality in private.

The decision was the result of a two-year evaluation by the organisation prompted by repeated rancour over the policy, both for and against, with celebrities, chief executives and boy scout activists weighing in.

“The vast majority of the parents of youth we serve value their right to address issues of same-sex orientation within their family, with spiritual advisers, and at the appropriate time and in the right setting,” said Bob Mazzuca, chief scout executive of Boy Scouts of America.

“While a majority of our membership agrees with our policy, we fully understand that no single policy will accommodate the many diverse views among our membership or society,” he said.

The study, begun in 2010, was conducted by a committee of volunteers and professional leaders that reflected “a diversity of perspectives and opinions”, the organisation said.

No further action would be taken on the matter, the statement said.

The Boy Scouts of America in 2000 won a 5-4 US Supreme Court ruling allowing the organisation to ban gays whose conduct, the Boy Scouts argued, violated its values.

As upheld by the Supreme Court, the Boy Scouts of America have the right to decide who can join their organisation.

However I think their decision is a stupid one, which undermines the superb programmes and leadership skills that the scouting movement can instill in young people. I say this as someone who spent 20 years in the NZ scouting movement, and even attended a World Scout Conference.

The NZ Scout Association has not had a ban on gay members for literally decades. It just simply isn’t an issue in NZ. Many outstanding Scout leaders in New Zealander are gay. The BSOA risk being marginalised and over time will find fewer and fewer companies, organisations and individuals willing to associate with them, because of a stupid arbitrary ban.

Stuff reports:

Winston Peters has criticised the anti-smoking lobby and Maori leaders, saying ordinary Maori are being saddled with a massive tax on smoking most of them don’t want.

Translation: Winston’s addiction is costing him money. I’ve got a solution for poor old Winnie though. The Government could add Quitline to the list of Super Gold Card services!

Mr Peters also questioned why the Japanese lived so long and have low rates of heart disease and stroke when they have the world’s highest smoking rate and said obesity was the main health concern for Maori, not smoking.

Oh dear, Winston must be lining up to be Health Minister in a Labour-led Government.

Incidentally Winston is wrong. The smoking rate in Japan is 24%. A Gallup poll found 21 countries with a smoking rate of over 30%.

The Herald editorial:

Elected members of local bodies around the country spent two days this week at a conference in Queenstown where they agreed – unanimously – that they do not need their wings clipped by a bill the Government is putting through Parliament.

How unsurprising.

Neither is inclined to leave it entirely to local voters to decide what their councils can do.

Why not? Councils in this country have a source of revenue independent of the central Government. If they exceed the wishes of their ratepayers those who receive their bill have a vote every three years. Do they need the Government to require their elected council to do more (Labour) or less (National) than they might want?

Their source of revenue is Government granted, not independent. But putting that aside, the trouble with the Herald’s argument is that rates increases are not transparent.

The central Government has to live within its means. To increase tax rates needs a special law of Parliament, and everyone sees that the Government is increasing tax rates. Generally also, any increases in taxes are flagged well before the election so voters can vote on them.

In local Government, they work out all the things they want to spend money on, and then strike the level of rates to match. And while media may report the average increase, the actual amount each property owner pays varies depending on the movement in their house value compared to the average. Plus you have the problem that a minority of voters actually pay rates. In total, there is little incentive for Councils to be fiscally restrained – hence why the average increase has been 7% annually – well beyond the ability of the economy to sustain.

What I would do is change the funding of local government from rates to taxes. Each Council can levy an income tax, which means almost all residents will pay it and hence take an interest in its level. It also means that a Council wanting to spend more money than previously, would need to openly propose that (for example) the local income tax increase from say 2.6% to 2.8%. People would be able to compare the level of local income tax between councils.

Now isn’t increasing income tax a bad thing, as the more you tax income, the less incentive people have to work. Yes. So I would balance this by reducing central income taxes significantly, and bringing in a national land tax in a fiscally neutral tax switch.

Isaac Davidson at NZ Herald reports:

Liquor industry executives have met Justice Minister Judith Collins and urged her to quash a law change which will ban the sale of high-strength “alcopops” in bottle stores. …

In May, the minister said there was a growing concern about sweet-tasting drinks that were high in alcohol.

In the Law Commission report the reforms were based on, the commission said the most common drinkers of RTDs were 14 to 24-year-olds, in particular women.

Actually the Law Commission did not recommend any measures specifically against RTDs. They correctly said that if you did this, then substitution is likely to occur. The Government inserted this proposal in the bill – it was not recommended by the Law Commission.

I blogged last year that Curia did some extensive research work for Independent Liquor in this area. The findings (from a phone poll, two point of sale surveys and half a dozen focus groups) were that around half of RTD drinkers but 8% RTDs and around half 5% RTDs. Of those who buy 8% RTDs (and they tend to be older men, not young women), many said that if RTDs are restricted to 5%, they would substitute to other products such as spirits.

We found that the average strength of a self-mix is 13% (and that is at the beginning of the night – it increases during the night), so what the proposed law change will do is move many RTD drinkers from an 8% product to a 13% product. Stupid right? This part of the bill will, in my opinion, significantly increase harm from alcohol.

Australia tried something similiar – what they did was put a special tax on RTDs. Sure enough, RTD sales dropped. But sales of spirits increased.

Stuff reports:

 The Labour Party has appointed former Christchurch Central MP Tim Barnett as its new general secretary. …

Labour president Moira Coatsworth said Flatt had been a very strong leader during challenging times, and left the party in a stronger financial position and in good health.

“Tim comes to this role with considerable experience as a political representative and manager of organisations, at a fascinating and exciting time in our history. He will be driving implementation of our Organisational Review, forging a campaign-ready Labour machine nationwide and spearheading our fundraising. All key tasks towards achieving Labour-led government from 2014,” she said.

This is a smart appointment by Labour. Tim is a very experienced political campaigner, and I suspect will do a good job at focusing the Labour organisation on campaigning.

I worked with him a bit on the civil unions and prostitution law reform bills, and he was a very effective campaigner. He had all 120 MPs categorised by how they might vote, and notes on who is best to approach each of them, and the arguments to use. He successfully got both law changes through, when other MPs might have failed.

It was a real mystery why Helen Clark never made him a Minister – he was obviously more capable than many who were.