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I made a mistake

Posted by on May 23rd, 2013

There’s been comment online about my previous post focusing on why I highlighted one thing and not others.

I subsequently updated the post and highlighted a few other things that I think are worthy of discussion. But  I agree with the commenters who say they are confused.

This has had the result of the discussion being about what I do or don’t support and not about the list itself which was the intention. There are some items on the list which I think could do with discussion. And which I didn’t want to highlight because they would need a separate post (which I am likely to now do eg on parallel importing)

That is my mistake. Yes I said it. I should have either highlighted things I thought were particularly frightening or not highlighted anything.

I think it’s a given that in the world of social media we don’t always get it right. Some of us make more mistakes than others. Once you make yourself available in the environment, especially if you are a publicly elected figure, you are immediately open to criticism, ridicule and sometimes fierce opposition and support.

I remain committed to the medium But it is getting tougher. I see it as engagement not broadcasting. But you have to take the good with the bad and I agree you should own up and say you either made a mistake or that  you could have expressed things better. In a conversation in the physical environment, that then gives you the opportunity to continue the conversation and hopefully move on.

Shall we continue the conversation?

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Filed under: Uncategorized
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The right wing agenda

Posted by on May 22nd, 2013

*Update to post. It’s fair enough that the comments are focussing on why I’m not support this or that. I highlighted and bolded one issue that I could definitely support. I didn’t highlight others that I thought needed discussion because I didn’t outright support them. But have subsequently done so. I do however think the discussion should be about the impact of the agenda and not about what I think.

On the 4 April, in the great stone-and-glass National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, luminaries descended to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), Australia’s leading free-market think-tank.

Tickets to the gala dinner cost a minimum of AU$500 (£340) per head, and an auction to raise funds for the IPA featured prizes including a guided tour of the Reagan Ranch in California and a behind the scenes Fox News “experience” in New York City, including a meeting with host Bill O’Reilly . Among the speakers were Rupert Murdoch, journalist Andrew Bolt, billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart, and a man named Tony Abbott, Leader of the Opposition.

Tony Abbott, Gina Rinehart and Rupert Murdoch took turns sharing the stage. Andrew Bolt (a conservative columnist for the Melbourne Herald Sun) was MC. By accounts, Abbott praised his fellow key-note speakers, especially Murdoch, and promised the crowd a “big yes” to many of the think tank’s list of 75 policies to radically transform Australia.

It is worth remembering that Tony Abbott and his conservative Liberal Party, David Cameron and the UK Conservatives and John Key and the National Party are all advised by the PR gurus Crosby Textor.

It’s also important to note that this dinner and the following ideas were the brain children of a right wing think tank. But it’s no coincidence that these three men and their parties share much of the following agenda. I wonder how many of these ideas (which have relevance here) will find their way into National’s agenda if they win another government term? I have marked the  ideas which I think have merit.

  • Means-test Medicare
  • Eliminate family tax benefits
  • Abandon the paid parental leave scheme
  • Abolish the Baby Bonus
  • Abolish the First Home Owners’ Grant
  • Repeal plain packaging for cigarettes and rule it out for all other products, including alcohol and fast food
  • Repeal the alcopops tax
  • Reject proposals for compulsory food and alcohol labelling
  • Repeal the Fair Work Act
  • Allow individuals and employers to negotiate directly terms of employment that suit them
  • Introduce a single rate of income tax
  • Return income taxing powers to the states
  • Cut company tax to 25 per cent
  • Cease subsidising the car industry
  • Abolish the Foreign Investment Review Board
  • Abolish the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
  • Abolish the Office for Film and Literature Classification
  • End local content requirements for Australian television stations
  • Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function
  • Devolve environmental approvals for major projects to the states
  • End mandatory disclosures on political donations
  • End all corporate welfare and subsidies by closing the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education
  • Immediately halt construction of the National Broadband Network and  privatise any sections that have already been built
  • Privatise Australia Post, Medibank and SBS
  • Halve the size of the Coalition front bench from 32 to 16
  • Reduce the size of the public service from current levels of more than 260,000 to at least the 2001 low of 212,784
  • Slash top public servant salaries
  • Force government agencies to put all of their spending online in a searchable database
  • Repeal the carbon tax, and don’t replace it (if it is replaced by another costly scheme, most of the benefits will be undone).
  • Abolish the Department of Climate Change
  • Abolish the Clean Energy Fund and repeal the renewable energy target
  • Withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol
  • Repeal the mining tax
  • Privatise the CSIRO and the Snowy-Hydro Scheme
  • Abolish the Commonwealth Grants Commission
  • Introduce fee competition to Australian universities
  • Means test tertiary student loans
  • Repeal the National Curriculum
  • Introduce competing private secondary school curricula
  • Reintroduce voluntary student unionism at universities
  • Introduce a voucher scheme for secondary schools
  • Abolish the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
  • Eliminate ‘balance’ laws for radio and television broadcasters
  • Abolish television spectrum licensing and devolve spectrum management to the common law
  • Eliminate media ownership restrictions
  • Cease funding the Australia Network
  • Rule out government-supported or mandated internet censorship
  • End public funding to political parties
  • Introduce voluntary voting
  • End media blackout in final days of election campaigns
  • Formalise a one-in, one-out approach to regulatory reduction
  • Legislate a cap on government spending and tax as a % of GDP
  • Legislate a balanced budget amendment which limits the size of budget deficits and the period the government can be in deficit
  • Allow people to opt out of superannuation in exchange for promising to forgo any government income support in retirement
  • Encourage independent contracting by overturning new regulations designed to punish contractors
  • End all hidden protectionist measures, such as preferences for local manufacturers in government tendering
  • Remove all tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade
  • Remove anti-dumping laws
  • Deregulate the parallel importation of books
  • End preferences for Industry Super Funds in workplace laws
  • Privatise the Australian Institute of Sport
  • Rule out federal funding for 2018 Commonwealth Games
  • End all public subsidies to sport and the arts
  • Eliminate the National Preventative Health Agency
  • End all government funded ‘Nanny State’ advertising
  • De-fund Harmony Day and close the Office for Youth
  • Repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act
  • Allow the Northern Territory to become a state
  • Introduce a special economic zone for northern Australia including:
    a) Lower personal income tax for residents
    b) Significantly expanded 457 Visa programs for workers
    c) Encourage the construction of dams.
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Filed under: #ownourfuture, Australia, politics
16 Comments

The law (of NZ) according to Kafka

Posted by on May 21st, 2013

The world’s gone mad! I hear that a lot. Now I’m starting to believe it.

In our own parliament there are a series of laws being introduced (under urgency) which are not able to be properly scrutinised because the advice from officials about their impact is apparently too sensitive for us mere mortals to behold. The long term ramifications of this are not good for our rights as citizens; our privacy and our ability to trust our government.

Andrew Geddis has written eloquently about this, in particular with regard to a  law passed at the weekend which laid out the (deeply inadequate) terms upon which carers could be paid to care for severely disabled family members. The basis of the legislation  is highly questionable but the ability to debate that and any legal risks has been curtailed by the removal (or redaction) of this important official advice from the publicly released Regulatory Impact Statement (or RIS). Keith Ng at Public Address said much the same thing only in less words and in more colourful language.

There has been a growing and disturbing pattern emerging in this government to blatantly redact important information from publicly available documents. The removal of important information from a Regulatory Impact Statement reaches new heights however as it effectively nobbles the Opposition members of parliament in being able to debate and vote on the law in our parliament.

The Disability Bill was the third Bill introduced into the House within a week which removed large tracts of critical information and advice from the Regulatory Impact Statement. I say “critical information and advice”, but we can only assume it was important and critical because we simply don’t know, as it has been removed from the public eye.

The passing of these laws are therefore unable to occur with the full knowledge of their impact on our supposedly democratic and open society.

The first was a Bill which allows the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB)  to assist the SIS, Police and Defence Force to spy on New Zealand citizens and residents, as long as it has the approval of the Prime Minister of the day.  Its Regulatory Impact Statement doesn’t even pretend to contain any real analysis of the risks for human rights, free speech and individual privacy. It boldly says there has been no consultation with the public. The hearings on this bill are very short and will be heard by a special select committee of party leaders. The likelihood is remote of all party leaders being available to hear submissions and then pay the required attention  to ensure good law-making about such an important and controversial matter in such a short time.

The second (which is linked to the first) is the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill which allow the GCSB and the Government extraordinary powers to intervene in a Telco network; from how it is designed, to how it operates in NZ. Should you be charged, then some evidence against you may be too secret (for you) to even hear. This Bill has two Regulatory Impact Statements: here and here. Both are heavily redacted.

In particular, look at page 9 of the  New Framework for network security which sets out the risks of the legislation: Unfortunately, the public is not allowed to know what most of those risks are because they are withheld. The period during which the public can provide submissions has been shortened from six weeks to five. We are now in week two. I urge everyone with an interest in our telecommunications frameworks and in robust democracy to submit.

It’s stranger than fiction. And immensely disturbing for our so-called Open Nation. Consider this:

In Franz Kafka’s The Trial; a man is arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed to neither him nor the reader.

His guilt is assumed, the bureaucracy running it (the remote inaccessible authority) is vast with many levels, and everything is secret, from the charge, to the rules of the court, to the authority behind the courts – even the identity of the judges at the higher levels.

Under the passing of these two laws, this could be our new reality. How did we get to this place? And what are we going to do about it?

 

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Filed under: #OpenLabourNZ, comms & IT, democracy
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When David beat Goliath

Posted by on May 13th, 2013

In Opposition most days are a battle.  Every now and then there’s a victory which makes it all worthwhile. It might be a constituent’s battle against inequality and injustice in our system. Or it might be a moment when there is a shift in industry direction which you just know will have a positive, even profound impact.

Last Thursday such a moment occurred. It was a David and Goliath moment for New Zealand and it’s worth celebrating.

In the hub-bub of the week’s emotional tributes to (our) Pakekura Horomia, the blinding spotlight on (their) Aaron Gilmore, David Shearer’s framing of the Budget as being one “for the boardroom, not the smoko room” and the introduction under urgency of two draconian and frightening pieces of spy legislation which will reverberate on our justice system and our telco industry, there was a relatively under-reported but likely momentous outcome to a three year battle to protect New Zealand’s burgeoning software industry. An outcome which will protect an important export industry for New Zealand’s economic future.

This is no small victory. It is, in effect, a signal to the world that New Zealand is a good place to grow a software business. And in time it may stimulate our tertiary education and training sector to wake up and realise what potential we have for significant growth in the weightless economy and in weightless exports.

But what a journey it has been. One which has pitted the might of the multinational software companies led by Microsoft and IBM  and the bloated patent attorney sector against New Zealand’s innovators who united (90% +) to oppose what they saw as one of the biggest threats to their future.

The National Government, blind to the local economic potential, and despite a unanimous select committee recommendation, sided with the multinationals and the out-dated advice from MFAT.

Thankfully they were over-ruled. Thanks must go firstly to the plucky ICT sector, led by Paul Matthews at the NZ Institute of IT Professionals and the software  innovators who formed an industry group called NZ Rise to push the case for software innovation in New Zealand. Internet NZ, and the NZ Open Source Society too.

Thanks should also go to Peter Dunne, who, under our MMP system essentially had the casting vote which forced the government into revising its position.

And to the Greens, who consistently backed the local industry and Labour position, NZ First, the Māori Party and Hone Harawera and Brendon Horan. This was a moment when every vote counted.

Dunne’s vote forced Craig Foss into the embarrassing position of having to re-write and re submit an amendment unravelling the position he had in-advisedly and belatedly pushed due to pressure from the multinationals.

His back down last Thursday now allows the Bill to pass with likely support from most parties and giving our local Kiwi innovators the opportunity to innovate, build new software without the threat of patent suits from big companies which could stifle them or threaten them and pay them off.

If New Zealand is to build an economic future based on our thinking power, then our creativity must be allowed to flourish.

I knew that. The industry knew that. Labour backed me for three years on this issue. Finally it has paid off.

There is a real story to tell about this Bill. One that has seen very big foreign companies place sustained pressure on New Zealand to influence its domestic laws. And lose. This is good news.

Three years ago, the Commerce Select Committee undertook a much needed review of New Zealand’s patent laws which hadn’t been looked at since 1953. A substantial review which considered and recommended modernisation to an important plank of our intellectual property regime ranging from inventions to medicines, traditional knowledge and indigenous plants and animals to software programs.

The Bill sought to modernise and simplify the procedures for obtaining a patent and that our patent regime would not inhibit innovation or discourage technology growth and exports.

The Commerce Select Committee, strongly led by former Commerce Minister Lianne Dalziel (with my keen input) considered these issues carefully and heard numerous submissions. We sent officials back several times to reconsider particular issues and provide international comparisons.

This is what we concluded:

Under the Patents Act 1953 computer programs can be patented in New Zealand provided they produce a commercially useful effect.3 Open source, or free, software has grown in popularity since the 1980s. Protecting software by patenting is inconsistent with the open source model, and its proponents oppose it. A number of submitters argued that there is no “inventive step” in software development, as “new” software invariably builds on existing software. They felt that computer software should be excluded from patent protection as software patents can stifle innovation and competition, and can be granted for trivial or existing techniques. In general we accept this position.

While the bill would provide adequate incentives for innovation, however, we are aware of New Zealand companies who have invested in a significant number of software-related inventions, involving embedded software.4 We sought advice on the approach taken in other jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom and the United States, and whether legislation that would enable “embedded software” to be patentable might be practicable. After careful consideration we concluded that developing a clear and definitive distinction between embedded and other types of software is not a simple matter; and that, for the sake of clarity, a simple approach would be best. We received advice that our recommendation to include computer programs among the inventions that may not be patented would be unlikely to prevent the granting of patents for inventions involving embedded software.

We recommend that the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand develop guidelines for inventions containing embedded software.

We knew that this recommendation was ground-breaking, but the select committee felt assured that we had looked carefully at the issues and reached the right conclusions.

There are varying views on what happened next. No doubt some will disagree but here’s my view, most of which is backed by evidence.

When the Select Committee reported back to the House in 2010, the big software multinationals (via the patent attorney companies which submitted on the Bill) either under-estimated the grasp that the committee would have of these issues, or were caught napping.

There was an immediate and sustained round of lobbying of government Ministers. As I understand it, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade became involved.

The Commerce Minister at the time was Simon Power. When the legislation sat on the table and wasn’t moved to the next reading for months (and then more than a year) Labour began to ask questions in select committee hearings and even in the House about the reason for the delay. Power publicly confirmed on two occasions that the select committee’s position would stand. This gave hope to the local industry that the legislation proceeding as was intended but still it sat in parliament. But I wasn’t convinced and repeatedly warned that the industry should remain vigilant.

Simon Power announced his resignation in March 2011 and left parliament that October. The Bill went into abeyance. The new Minister Craig Foss had no grasp on the underlying issues and was ripe for the capture of the foreign software lobby and the influence of MFAT.

Sure enough, in August last year, as the Bill finally returned to the House, Foss introduced a last minute amendment which contradicted the will of the select committee and allowed software patents under the guise of this phrase:

“… prevents anything from being an invention for the purposes of this Act only to the extent that a patent or an application relates to a computer program as such“

The two words “as such” tacked on at the end are precisely the same as those that are found in Article 52 of the European Patent Convention that also excludes software patents, BUT which has allowed lawyers to obtain thousands of software patents in the EU on the grounds that they weren’t software patents “as such“. In other words, legal speak for allowing something to occur which doesn’t appear to be allowed.

Craig Foss had given in to patent lawyers and multinational software players and sought to impose a software patents system on our IT sector. He over-rode the advice of the Commerce Select Committee that patenting software would smother innovation.

It caused an uproar in our innovative IT industry, that knew it would be stifled by constant threats of law suits from multinationals. My personal view is that he didn’t understand what he’d done. Fortunately, we have a local industry with legal minds and guts which recognised the critical importance that this seemingly small law change could make to our local industry.

Interestingly, I spent a month in the US in October last year where the debate about excluding software from being patented is growing. People should be aware that a huge legal industry has grown around patent software wars and that banning software patents would significantly affect the litigious community. I’d rather back growth in weightless exports and jobs for our kids vs an industry based on litigation any day!

Why should lawyers profit from running cases which ultimately stifle new innovators inventing the next software programme?

The clamour in New Zealand opposing the Craig Foss amendment grew late last year. I put up a counter amendment which was backed by the industry A petition by the local Kiwi software industry gathered more than 1200 signatures from software developers in just a few weeks.

Again the legislation stalled. Some media began to take an interest the wider backdrop of the influence of foreign companies on New Zealand’s domestic law and economic interests began to gain some traction.

It has taken more than 8 months, but finally a compromise has been reached. I understand that more than one Government Minister was required to sign off on SOP 237. Importantly, it is backed by the Kiwi software industry and to my mind that is what counts.

It’s extraordinary that it’s taken so long and is a strong indication that the National Government has not understood the importance of:

1.      The growing importance of software to development of the NZ economy

2.      How intellectual property laws can be used as a tool to stifle innovation (and shouldn’t be)

For those who watch intellectual property issues and their impact on our economy, pay attention. The law excluding software from patentability can apply to other sectors such as pharmaceuticals and other types of IP such as copyright.

Perhaps the penny may drop as we move along the path towards an outcome on the Trade Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) and the absolute importance of the intellectual property regime being negotiated in New Zealand’s interests.

Our software industry now has a future. Let’s keep our eye on the ball.

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Media freedom an “endangered species” in NZ

Posted by on May 9th, 2013

Last Friday was International Press Freedom Day. To mark the occasion, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance which represents journalists in New Zealand and Australia, produced a publication on media freedom. I was asked to submit a contribution. Here it is:

The fundamental role of the news media is simply to report fair and balanced information to citizens. In doing so the news media acts as a ‘watchdog’ or power check, protecting the rights and interests of citizens. While factors such as entertainment undeniably hold some importance to the news media, it is the watchdog function of the news media that is fundamental to the workings of a democracy.

The democratic functions of the media to educate and inform citizens, and to act as a power check to the state has been overridden by content that is focussed on producing profit.

Democratic functions have therefore fallen on the shoulders of public service broadcasters.

In New Zealand, a shrinking media environment, under-resourced watchdogs such as the Ombudsman, the Office of the Auditor General and the Privacy Commission and an unrelenting move away from the notion of public media to commercial media in the broadcasting environment has eroded our ability to uphold these fundamental principles.

The ability of the print media to withstand the pressure of the online environment shows the power of disruptive technology on a business model which is rapidly becoming stressed and replaced with news being gathered online. The big question for our print media is how to make that pay. A discussion on this would require another whole piece, but contributes to an environment in which instability and restructuring are the norm and the craft of “good journalism” is under high stress.

A 2010 report by the UK media academic Chris Hanretty ranked New Zealand’s TVNZ as 19/36 for perceived independence. Australia’s ABC was ranked 5th and the BBC 6th.

Since then the situation has significantly deteriorated. Our only (small) public television broadcaster TVNZ7 was axed by the conservative National Government in 2012. The state owned broadcaster TVNZ  had its public service charter removed in 2011 and has been forced to become fully commercial.

New Zealand is now the only country in the OECD (bar Mexico) which does not fund a public television broadcaster.

Our public service radio broadcaster Radio NZ has had its funding frozen for more than three years. It has become lonely and increasingly isolated as the beacon of media freedom in a commercialised and cynical media environment.

The past four years has seen the steady decline in the news media’s effectiveness to report fair and balanced information on news and current events. Government policy has created a media environment in which the news media cannot function efficiently, increasingly leaving citizens in the dark about decisions that affect their everyday lives.

Market pressures force the news media to focus on ‘infotainment’ or the sensational in order to keep costs low and profits high. This has led to an environment where reporting standards continue to slip leaving significant events and decisions with little or no coverage.

Government policies have also included a deal between TVNZ and Sky TV (Igloo) which essentially maintained Sky TV’s monopoly of the pay TV market, and the failure to reserve spectrum for public service broadcasting after the digital switch over.

The Government’s support of commercial media and continual disregard for public service content can also be seen in the recent funding decisions of NZ on Air (NZoA) which acts as the Government’s broadcasting funding mechanism, supporting locally produced free to air content across all broadcasting mediums. NZoA’s annual statement of intent must be approved by the broadcasting Minister and Government, which means the Government of the day has a direct influence on it.

Recent NZoA funding decisions certainly reflect the Government’s priorities and ethos regarding the media. TVNZ 2’s reality television show NZ’s Got Talent recently received $1.6 million, and while the show arguably does show young New Zealand talent it is certainly questionable whether the commercially-attractive formulaic programme should have been considered for arts and culture funding.

Despite public concern, NZoA recently announced that it would spend another $1.6 million to fund TV3’s The X Factor NZ, another talent show based on a similar format. Rather than producing cultural content that genuinely would not be produced without funding, NZoA has continued to support major broadcasters through the funding of commercially viable content.

NZoA has based its funding decisions on dividing funds equally between major broadcasters rather than in the interests of the public. Whilst these foreign formatted reality television shows have received $3.2 million out of the tax payer’s pocket running on prime television at peak times attracting advertising dollars, local current affairs shows and unique locally conceived drama and factual shows are nearly at the brink of extinction.

These decisions made by NZoA reflect the Government’s stance on a free, fair, and balanced media. NZoA funding is only one example among many in the Government’s support of commercial broadcasters at the cost of citizens.

TVNZ has recently replaced its log running current affairs nightly programme Close Up with 7 Sharp which can at best be described as infotainment rather than investigative journalism, and fair and balanced information.

Perhaps the most bizarre event recently in the New Zealand media is pay-TV provider Sky TV announcement that it will air a public service channel. Beginning in February Sky TV is airing Face TV, a public service channel dedicated to screening local and international news and current affairs.

Whilst some could argue that this is an instance of the market filling a gap, this argument is deeply flawed as the channel is behind Sky TV’s pay TV wall and therefore is not accessible to all New Zealanders. This move by Sky TV reflects that New Zealanders not only need but also but want public service content, and signals the Government’s blatant disregard of non-commercial broadcasting in New Zealand.

The New Zealand media truly is in dire straits. Government policy and direction has created a media and political environment that is simply unable to provide the information that citizens need to make informed decisions leaving dominant powers unquestioned and unchecked. The rights and interests of the citizen are no longer protected. This boils down to whether democratic processes can work without an effective and efficient news media. Perhaps ironically, if the news media had been functioning properly these issues may have already been addressed.

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Should notification of data breaches be mandatory?

Posted by on April 3rd, 2013

The Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff last week told us that public trust is being eroded by government sector breaches. She said  government agencies have huge databases of information which the public is forced to provide, and in return they need to look after that information properly and that public sector agencies needed to have stronger controls in place when handling spread sheets of personal information.

Last year she warned us that the public sector can’t afford to be complacent. It’s quite clear that agencies holding large amounts of personal information need to place greater value on that information asset. They need to develop strong leadership and a culture of respect for privacy, as well as day to day policies and practices to provide trustworthy stewardship of our personal information at every level of the organisation. There has been far too little focus on the fact that there are real people behind the masses of information that government agencies hold.

Data breach notification isn’t currently required by law, but the Law Commission recently recommended that it should be made compulsory where breaches put people at risk. That would bring New Zealand law into line with practice overseas.

The private sector has warned repeatedly that New Zealand has a major problem with information security, and a strategy released late last year by a group of  IT security professionals said that although technological innovation is high within the New Zealand market, the national spend on educating, training, and developing skilled technical personnel is surprisingly low, creating an imbalance and directly contributing to the fragility and vulnerability of our nation’s IT systems. If that is not a significant warning, I do not know what is.

Last week the chief executive officer of the  Institute of IT Professionals, Paul Matthews, said that the Earthquake Commission had failed Security 101 and that it was  mickey mouse stuff that such sensitive information could be sent so easily to an outside person.

We are daily finding out about more data breaches, which indicates that they are commonplace.

The solutions aren’t off the shelf, but the Government’s refusal to treat the breaches as systemic, requiring the highest attention is very concerning.

The reason for many breaches will no doubt lie in the way each department and agencies IT systems have grown. Privacy and security systems are unlikely to have been built into these systems from the very beginning. Many issues can be resolved through training people using the systems in simple procedures to protect data. IT solutions exists to provide password protected spreadsheets being sent out as attachments and sometimes to prevent email attachments fullstop.

An across government response is required with a Chief Technology Officer with clout responsible to the Prime Minister. Our approach to information security is 20th century and inexcusable. I fear the public service is ill resourced to deal with the ongoing breaches we have faced and will face.

Instead, we have a Prime Minister who shrugs his shoulders and dismisses the breaches as “inevitable, human error and a trade-off”. He may rue those remarks.

NB: have attempted to contact Threat Toons for copyright permission. But have repeatedly been blocked from accessing their site. Might be the title. Happy to continue trying

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Filed under: comms & IT, digital, privacy
4 Comments

Systemic data breaches; The wider issues

Posted by on March 28th, 2013

Labour members outlined the shocking systemic information security crisis emerging across government ministries, departments and agencies. This issue needs attention at the highest levels. Instead it is being treated on a case by case basis and the Prime Minsiter even made light of the data breaches earlier this week

 

 

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Filed under: #OpenLabourNZ
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Systemic data breaches continue

Posted by on March 28th, 2013

Shocking revelations in the House from Lianne Dalziel this afternoon of ANOTHER data breach from EQC where thousands of people have had their financial details released to an unauthorised person.

Lianne’s urgent question in the House was granted

 

 

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Kiwirail: Don’t say you weren’t warned!

Posted by on March 13th, 2013

This column (written by me) appeared in the Dunedin D Scene newspaper today

A parliamentary inquiry into manufacturing heard this week in Dunedin there are no quality checks on the manufacturing standards of the rail wagons imported from China – a contract which sounded the death knell for the Hillside workshops.

Common themes emerged at the day-long hearing with Hillside, NZ Aluminium Smelters, Oamaru’s Summit Woolspinners and the unions representing workers at those plants questioning tenders awarded to offshore companies over local providers based purely on lowest cost, rather than the true value to the whole of the economy; the impact of the high dollar on exports and indifference of government to keeping and building a skilled workforce in our communities.

One of the most chilling revelations was that there are no quality checks being undertaken on the standard of manufacture of the Chinese imported wagons.

The inquiry, initiated by Opposition parties heard that welding on both wagons and locomotives was substandard and that no checks were undertaken to ensure they met New Zealand standards.

I have since been told that a directive has been issued to Kiwirail staff that no-one is to stand on, or ride in the controversial IAB wagons imported from China in 2011. That directive does not apply to New Zealand built wagons. These wagons also have a speed restriction placed on them due to the systemic flaws with their design and construction.

The Rail, Maritime Transport Union has recently sounded a sobering warning through its latest journal that Kiwirail culture has dangerously shifted towards services over safety.

Clocks have been installed in Kiwirail workplaces and performance is being measured on minimising time delays.

The pressure from within Kiwirail to meet Government policies for profit on its freight business and to reduce cost on other parts of the organisation is a time bomb waiting to go off.

The union likens it to the period in the late 1990s when a series of fatalities stimulated a Government inquiry in rail health and safety.

Kiwirail and its political masters should be warned that the country is watching closely the impact of lowest cost tendering, cuts to rail maintenance and the pressure to put time-keeping over health and safety issues. You can’t say you haven’t been warned.

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Filed under: #ownourfuture, Health and Safety, Manufacturing
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Is the Govt trading away our tech sector’s ideas?

Posted by on February 15th, 2013

Pat Pilcher has written another good piece in the NZ Herald about the looming changes to NZ’s patent laws which could have provided a serious kickstart to oru software industry, but which won’t becasue of a stupid last minute amendment by Commerce Minister Craig Foss who has been heavied by the multinational software comapnies. And our own Ministries.

He writes:

The hope held out by many was that software would be excluded from being covered by patents, however it now appears that the government is likely to change patent legislation so that software can be patented.

Even though the Commerce Select Committee and numerous industry experts have all recommended that software be excluded from patentability, amendments made to the bill after pressure was placed on the government could be sufficiently vague that software could end up being patented.

This, say the experts, would provide large lawyered-up multinationals with a means of tying smaller kiwi software developers up in court, effectively stunting our home-grown software industry.

Indications are that even though the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) had agreed that software should be excluded from patents and were confident that this wouldn’t impact on trade treaties, sources indicate that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (who are currently in the midst of negotiating the trans pacific partnership trade agreement) are said to now be somewhat less enthusiastic about excluding software from patents.

Read more here

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Filed under: #ownourfuture
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Where is our digital ambition?

Posted by on January 30th, 2013

Why aren’t we defining intellectual property as an integral part of our economy?

Our future prosperity will be carved out by backing the talent of businesses working in high tech. Kiwi businesses. A thriving manufacturing sector is at the heart of Labour’s vision. A weightless economy is integral to that.

The manufacturing inquiry is integral. So is getting our Patent laws right. Quantifying the strength of our Intellectual property sector might kick start us to realise our own worth.

Here is my speech tonight in the debate on the Prime Minister’s speech. The hands off, leave it to the market approach  of this government has failed all over the world. It’s clearly failing in New Zealand.

 

 

 

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Filed under: comms & IT
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Two minutes silence for Hillside

Posted by on December 18th, 2012

On Friday at 11am, please stop whatever you are doing for TWO  MINUTES to mark the passing of 130 years of engineering work at Hillside Workshops in Dunedin.

Filed under: economy, jobs
14 Comments

Red Alert: Deadline tomorrow to submit to the manufacturing inquiry

Posted by on November 29th, 2012

Submissions to the joint party Parliamentary Inquiry into Manufacturing close tomorrow Friday 30 November.

The inquiry has been jointly called by the Labour Party, the Green Party, New Zealand First and Mana as they seek to address the crisis in our manufacturing industry that the National Government continues to deny.

More than half of the manufacturing businesses that began in 2008 have disappeared in the past four years and the rate of new manufacturing businesses starting up has declined by a third in four years, from over 2,000 a year in 2008 to just 1,300 a year this year. Over 8,000 manufacturing businesses have closed and more than 40,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since this government took office. Jobs and businesses shutting down or heading off shore affect whole communities and local economies.

The recent announcement of 90 redundancies at KiwiRail’s Hillside workshops is an example of this that hits close to home for myself and my constituents. Workers at Hillside have lived with their uncertain futures since the intended sale was announced in May while the announcement of 25 redundancies at the O’Brien’s Benchtops Ltd no doubt took many of those affected by surprise so close to Christmas. I have started a collection for Christmas

Further afield the reverberations of further losses such as Tiwai Point aluminium smelter and Mataura’s Meatworks are being felt through my electorate and the wider South Island. And I know we are far from the only area hit by this crisis.

The Inquiry Committee is calling for submissions and will hear from people around the country early next month but you only have until tomorrow to submit in writing and request to be heard by emailing manufacturinginquiry@parliament.govt.nz

We want to hear the personal experiences of workers and businesspeople who have lost jobs and income in recent years, as well as anyone else who has an opinion or ideas about what the Government should be doing to support these industries in the current global economic climate.

Because some workers fear there may be reprisals for having their say or simply don’t want to be personally identified, if so you can still submit.

Send your views to manufacturinginquiry@parliament.govt.nz before the end of this week.

 

Filed under: #ownourfuture, economy, Manufacturing
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How do we keep our media free from political interference?

Posted by on November 9th, 2012

The case for a strong, independent, modern, commercial free public broadcaster is strengthening. The appointment yesterday of Richard Long, by Broadcasting Minister Craig Foss to the board of TVNZ at the very least creates a perception of a political appointment.

Long was chief of staff to Bill English and Don brash. He is competent and qualified for the position.

But this is our state broadcaster.

Media independent of political interference is a critical cornerstone of a functioning democracy. I contend we have crossed a line in the last four years. This is a deeply important issue.

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Filed under: broadcasting, democracy
17 Comments

US Virgin

Posted by on September 19th, 2012

Tomorrow I take my first trip to the US. I am enormously privileged to be part of a group of people from multiple nations who will consider the importance of intellectual property rights in the global trade and business communities.

For some of you that might sound deadly dull. For me, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime to have look at the impact of technology on how we live our lives and how our new economy is emerging. And how a thinker, a policy maker and legislator from New Zealand might be able to absorb information, get a few ideas, have a few arguments and come up with some concepts that could add value to New Zealand.

I am sponsored by the US State Department.

I will post some thoughts along the way.

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Filed under: #OpenLabourNZ, comms & IT
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Who influenced Craig Foss to change the patents bill against our Kiwi software industry?

Posted by on September 13th, 2012

The debate in the second reading of the Patents Bill yesterday afternoon was intense.

At the heart of it was why Commerce Minister Craig Foss had made, what on the face of it, seemed like an ill-conceived decision to change the wording of a key clause which will affect our local software industry adversely. By moving away from a position which blankly said a software  program could not be patented, he has qualified this hugely by adding the following:

..prevents anything from being an invention for the purposes of this Act only to the extent that a patent or an application relates to a computer program as such

The “as such” change opens to the door to big multinational corporates being able to take advantage of an ambiguous clause to dominate and stifle smaller innovative software developers in court.

Foss claims it won’t. Labour, the Greens and NZ First claim it will. We don’t know what the Maori Party, John Banks and Peter Dunne think yet. I hope they’ll look at it carefully and listen to local developers.

The Kiwi software industry certainly thinks it will affect them badly. They put together a petition and in just 4 or five days with almost 1100 signatures asking the Minister to reconsider. And it might be worth noting that among the 1100 signatories are some of our biggest software innovators; Jade, Orion Health and Xero (PS: Xero didn’t sign, but their head of design did).

Now it emerges that, despite the on record commitments of previous Commerce Minister Simon Power since 2010 that the recommendation by the Commerce Select Committee to exclude software from patentability would stand, there were backroom meetings with the multinationals from the moment the Bill was reported back to the House, pressuring the Minister and officials to change their minds and open the door to software patentability.

Somehow the language used in Craig Foss’s amendment  is precisely that requested by those lobbyists. This “as such” language both undermines the software exclusion to the point where software is, in fact, patentable, while at the same time it’s asserted to be the best language to implement a software exclusion? One of those positions is false. We know – and the pro-software patent lobby’s support for it is ample verification – that the “as such” wording will rapidly be used to circumvent the software patent exclusion.

Here’s the evidence. A blog post by NZICT, which represents those multinationals, including Microsoft and IBM specifically, requested that the Ministry of Economic Development change its language to that used by the European Patent Convention “because that language can easily be circumvented” and in effect undoes the software patent exclusion. The NZICT Group (claimed to have) had assurances from the MED that it was never the ministry’s intention to ban software from patentability in any case.

Note: this blog post has since been taken off the NZICT website. I wonder why?

Labour yesterday tabled this blog post in the House during the debate and raised questions about how this backroom deal was done and why the select committee’s intent had been circumvented and hijackedby the multinational’s agenda against the interests of our local software development industry.

It’s worth noting that the main MED actor in all of this is Rory McLeod, who is also the main IP negotiator on behalf of MFAT in the TPPA negotiations. Coincidence? I think not.

What does the government think it’s doing stifling our most important innovators. This is bloody ridiculous.

The Foss amendment now provides the pro-patent multinational lobby with exactly what they specifically requested in June 2010.

Yet somehow Foss and MED are trying to sell this as the most certain way to ensure a software patent exclusion. It can’t be both.

The Kiwi software developers vehemently oppose the Foss amendment because they believe that they will be vulnerable to multinational corporate patent suits on software inventions. This has proven the case in the European jurisdiction.  There are hundreds of comments on the petition website from Kiwi software developers about this.

I have been contacted directly  in the last few days by a Canadian software company which has planned to relocate to NZ because of the patent ban on software because it was a better environment in which to innovate.

I was told late last week about a synthetic biology start up which is a co-investment of $170m between NZ and Taiwan. It came about because NZ was seen as being proactive for digital start ups because of this Patent Bill sitting on our books.

In the US over the last 20 years, its been estimated that the cost to the US economy of patent litigation is half a trillion dollars. We don’t want the US system because it’s all about patenting this and that and patenting trolls who trawl the planet looking for inventions they can pretend to have ownership over. We don’t want the European system as it stands either. It’s the European system whose ambiguous “as such” has resulted in 30 years of expensive litigation, and has resulted in most software being patentable despite that being contrary to the spirit of the legislation.

What we want is a law that’s as clear and unambiguous as we can make it. That protects our innovators and allows the physical invention to be patented (such as a washing machine) but keeps the software code which runs the washing machine protected by copyright and not by patent.

The moment the prospect of patent litigation looms on the horizon, there’s only one group who benefits and that’s patent lawyers who can tie companies up in the courts for years. The big corporates don’t mind as they are protecting their market share and stifling competition.

Copyright adequately protects software development.

Software is lines of code, like music is lines of notes, or books are lines of text. Software is a collection of mathematical equations. In order to create new software you have to build on existing software.

Everyone – including National – has accepted that software patents should be excluded – I don’t think that’s being re-litigated here. What we need to take National to task for is the fact that the way they have chosen to implement the software exclusion won’t, in fact, work. Moreover, it appears that they’re consciously adopting the means for implementing it which fundamentally undermines their stated goal.

How can they claim, with a straight face, that the wording of the bill requested by the pro-software patents lobby – because it effectively reverses the exclusion – is the best way to exclude software patents? The same language can’t achieve both ends. It appears that, either due to incompetence or malice, the Minister and/or his advisors have adopted language which fundamentally undermines their stated aim of excluding software patents.

As I said in my speech in the House yesterday (9 minutes into this clip), we need to encourage our innovators not stifle them. Labour hopes the government will work that out before this Bill passes.

Patents exists purely to provide an incentive for inventors to create for the greater good. Patents categorically DO NOT exist “to protect an inventor’s investment”.  Given that the software industry has spoken decisively about the language it wants to use to implement the broadly supported ban on software patents, why not accept that these people have done their homework.

Given that they are the ones who will have to live with this legislation from day to day, let’s accept that the kiwi software industry has offered better language for the software patent exclusion than the pro-software patent lobby’s preferred language proposed by Foss’ ill-advised SOP.

That’s why I moved an amendment this week to follow this statement:

10A(1) A computer program is not an invention for the purposes of this Act.

My amendment simply says

10A(2): Subsection (1) does not prevent an invention that makes use of an embedded computer program from being patentable.

This means a computer software program is not patentable. Fullstop.

Two observations:

  • Comms and IT Minister Amy Adams claims her portfolio has nothing to do with software and patents. Extraordinary as she claims to represent the software and IT industry.
  • David Farrar on Kiwiblog has been very silent. Would love to know what he thinks
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Filed under: comms & IT, economy
21 Comments

Well I could say I told you so

Posted by on September 11th, 2012

The guy who invented emoticons doesn’t like them anymore.

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Filed under: humour
2 Comments

Our Paralympian heroes

Posted by on September 5th, 2012

Four gold. Four silver and four bronze. So far. Proud of all who are competing


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Filed under: broadcasting, disabilities, sport
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What makes us proud?

Posted by on September 5th, 2012

It’s a disgrace that NZers are not seeing any of the live coverage of the Paralympics.

Sky TV pay wall subscribers are only being provided with the highlights of Paralympic events, while coverage for analogue or digital Freeview audiences is limited to items appearing on the six o’clock news shows.

The lack of live coverage of events showcasing the enormous talent of our Paralympians is not only a lost opportunity to provide positive role models for the almost one in five New Zealanders with a disability, but also exposes the glaring gap that public television should be serving.

Why don’t we have live coverage? Because there isn’t a buck in it for the commercial broadcasters (apparently). Because we don’t have a public TV channel that puts public interest and serving the whole community above the commercial interests of the advertisers. Instead, we have a government that does not put a value on public interest broadcasting.

A host of the top Australian politicians are at the London Paralympics this week, and the coverage (live, 16 hours a day on Channel 4) in Britain is the most popular TV. Are any of our politicians at the Paralympics?

I believe in a country that champions and encourages all who try their best to achieve. That is the nation I grew up in and continue to believe in.

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Filed under: broadcasting, disabilities, sport
3 Comments

How many electorates aren’t being well served by National MPs?

Posted by on September 4th, 2012

My post yesterday on Bill English and his mostly closed electorate offices in Balclutha and Gore has attracted some interest on Red Alert and on facebook.

A number of people commented that they were experiencing the same issues in other National-held electorates.

I’m wondering how many National Party electorate offices are actually staffed on a regular basis?

And how much direct constituency work they do and what options are open to constituents if they try to approach their local MP and are rebuffed, ignored or can’t make contact because it’s always closed.

Would be interesting to find out.

 

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Filed under: #OpenLabourNZ
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