Libertarianz
Response to Election Questionnaire
1 - Using a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is irrelevant and 10 is critical; please rate the importance of an Internet-enabled digital
future to New Zealand's society and economy?
Five. Helpful, but far from essential. The internet can make an
important contribution to people's lives, but let's not pretend this
is some kind of life-or-death issue. Getting the government out of
peoples lives and businesses to stimulate growth and innovation
(whether online or off-line) is far more important.
2 - Should the investment model for rolling out fibre access be
private sector or public private partnership, and what is the
appropriate role for government, both central and local?
This should be activity conducted solely by the private sector. If no private sector can make a case for such investment occurring, that is
an important signal that government shouldn't be doing it either.
Currently almost all fibre networks in New Zealand are privately owned
and are being expanded. Therefore the issue is likely to be more
around the rate at which this might happen in the future, rather than
whether it will happen at all.
One important contribution government can make is to repeal the RMA -
replacing it with well-defined private property rights so that a
significant barrier to competitive network building is removed.
3 - Do you consider the existing international connectivity to be a
bottleneck? If yes, what options would you pursue to deal with this?
International connectivity can be a bottleneck at certain times and
for certain applications. There is no hard limit on capacity as more
capacity can be provided on existing cables or new cables can be
built. All that is required is for there to be an appropriate return
available to such expansion. To the extent that international
connectivity does become a significant bottleneck it will be that much
easier to financially justify such expansion.
4 - What policies would you support that would encourage co-investment
and/or coordination in laying fibre cables?
The first point to note is that while ducting and fibre might be 70%
of deployment costs, there are far more significant costs, such as
OSS/BSS functions, which are required to provide a service to
customers. Burying glass in the ground is only a small part of the
equation.
We would certainly encourage co-operation between private individuals
in regard to how infrastructure is deployed. This isn't something
that requires specific legislation, it would occur when it is in the
parties' mutual interests.
Policies to support this would be around protection of property rights
to give individuals the confidence to invest in infrastructure without
fear that those investments might subsequently be confiscated.
5 - Would you support requirements on duct access, sharing of fibre
access inside buildings, and requirements to install fibre in new
buildings?
These are all property rights issues.
Duct access should not be a requirement imposed by government. It is
up to the owner of the duct to decide what access to it he is willing
to provide and on what terms.
Similarly, sharing of building fibre is a matter for the building
owner to decide. Generally a building owner will not want to have
multiple fibres installed within a building beyond the requirements of
resilience so will have incentives to facilitate sharing.
It's hard to see why the government would need to require fibre to be
installed. The developer/builder is likely to want to make the most
modern facilities available in a new building in order to be able to
charge higher rentals. In other buildings fibre might make no sense.
There is no reason why developers would not make appropriate decisions
here.
6 - Do you support an open access model for local fibre in which the
network provider sells passive network capacity to other services
providers to sell, or lesser requirements of equity of access to
wholesale services from network providers?
A company that chooses to lay fibre might well choose to operate it
with an open access model. However this is not something that should
be mandated by the government. The fibre builder would need to trade
off the potentially lower price against the potentially higher usage
of his facilities. Similarly, providing equity of access would be
provided voluntarily in some situations and not in others. It should
not be a government requirement.
7 - How will your party assist the poor in New Zealand to get decent
access to computers and the Internet, and what will your party do to
ensure every school, library and polytechnic has fibre access?
The best way to help the poor is to free up the economy so that
investment is encouraged and high-paying jobs can be created.
Nevertheless there will always be some people poorer than others.
Many people in this situation might decide that they wanted to
prioritise other things (e.g. food or accommodation) over internet
access and the government should not interfere with this choice.
There is no case for provision of subsidised internet by the
government; however private institutions may decide that this is a
sufficiently worthy cause.
There is no case for every school or library to have fibre access.
For example, small schools are likely to be quite adequately served by
DSL-based facilities. This is a matter for each school to decide.
Most polytechnics would be able to justify fibre access, but again,
this is a matter for them to set their own spending priorities in
regard to.
8 - The rural sector is often called the engine room of our economy -
how will you improve rural connectivity and access to high-speed
broadband?
The key ways to improve rural connectivity are by strengthening
property rights and repealing the RMA. This will provide a much more
favourable environment for investment. As there appears to be demand
in rural areas for such connectivity there is no reasons to suppose it
would not be met. High speed broadband will be much easier to provide
into rural areas using emerging cellular technologies such as HSPA+
and LTE so the current difficulties in providing broadband caused by
reliance on fixed networks will reduce.
9 - How far should Government go to protect the interests of copyright
owners against the rights of citizens and do you think our copyright
laws are being unduly influenced by the US entertainment industries?
Libertarianz support copyright laws as a way of protecting the
property rights of content producers. The problem seems to be more
one of enforcement and legislation. Given the ease of reproduction
and transmission the law will always struggle to keep up.
Libertarianz also notes that any penalty needs to be proportional to
the crime, i.e., copyright infringement of a few songs worth 99 cents
each should not incur a penalty of hundreds of thousands of dollars,
as the RIAA propose.
There is a limit to what the government can achieve here beyond
setting a general legal framework. If a large proportion of the
population are not respecting a property right, it will not be
realistic to prosecute all of them. Ultimately, copyright owners are
likely to need to come up with alternative ways of monetising their
assets.
10 - As a result of industry pressure, the Government has delayed
Section 92A of the amended Copyright Act, which will require ISPs to
terminate the accounts of repeat copyright infringers. What is your
position on s92A and how would you resolve the issues?
Any termination of accounts by ISPs should only be subsequent to a
court order. Extending penalties for repeat offenders is the only way
to ensure that the party responsible doesn't just set up again with a
new account at a different ISP.
11 - Will you commit to a balanced approach to copyright reform that reflects the views of all New Zealanders by pledging: to respect the rights of creators and consumers; to not support law change that
undermines or weakens copyright user rights; and to fully consult with
New Zealanders before introducing law changes or signing international
treaties that would impact copyright user rights?
Yes.
12 - Should there be a first-principles review of New Zealand's
Copyright Law and, if so, when would you begin this work?
The law does need to be reviewed, and probably on an ongoing basis.
Libertarianz does have an extensive de-regulatory agenda covering a
number of areas likely to be a higher priority than this, so we cannot
at this stage commit to achieving copyright reform during our first
term in government.
13 - Last election there were pledges of 1,000 more cops on the
street. What about online? How many more cops do we need in
cyberspace? And will you
increase the capability of the Police E-crime Lab, Internal Affairs
Censorship and Anti-Spam Units, Customs, and the Centre for Critical
Infrastructure Protection?
Policing is one of the few legitimate roles of Government. Most of
these areas of policing are likely to be increased over time as the
Internet becomes an increasingly important part of people's lives.
The only exception to this is in relation to censorship, where the
Libertarianz would give a higher priority to Freedom of Speech.
14 - Does NZ need to establish an NZCERT (Computer Emergency Response
Team) and if yes, what role should Government play in the
establishment, operation and funding of an NZCERT?
This is a matter for private individuals and organisations to
consider. For example the insurance industry might facilitate this
and provide lower premiums for more secure computer installations.
15 - What is your party's view of the UK approach? Are you in favour
of more, or less, intrusive actions by Government and enforcement
agencies? What will your party do to ensure the privacy of each
individual's identity and information online?
The government is not entitled to go on fishing expeditions through
private information. Interception of communications should only take
place subsequent to the issuing of a warrant.
16 - What steps do you intend taking to accelerate the deployment of
networks using IPv6 in New Zealand, particularly inside Government?
New Zealand is such a small proportion of the overall address pool
that actions we take here will have no real effect on the problem of
address scarcity.
However in order to interact internationally on an ongoing basis it
will be necessary for individuals and organisation to migrate to IPv6
in line with the rest of the world. It is in each party's
self-interest to do this and there is no need for government
intervention.
17 - How will your party address the issues of regulation of content
in New Zealand as content becomes more and more available online and
outside of traditionally regulated broadcasting channels?
Libertarianz does not support regulation of content.
18 - Do we need a converged regulator of broadcasting and
telecommunications, and if so, should there be two such converged
regulators, one for content and the other for infrastructure?
We do not require a regulator, whether converged or otherwise.
Property rights, and the legal structures which need to be in place to
support these, are all the government needs to provide in this regard.
19 - How do you see the increasing delivery of media content over the
Internet affecting the way content creation is funded by Government?
Increasing delivery of media content over the Internet will help to
convince New Zealanders that there is no role for Government funding
in content creation.
Libertarianz would remove the GST on content creation activities (and
on everything else) and substantially reduce other taxes so it would
be much more economic to create content.
Government funding of content is a small step away from government
influence over content.
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EFA Note: As these statements are extremely likely to encourage
persons to vote for Libertarianz, the party wishes to exercise an
abundance of caution by advising that they are authorised by Robert
Palmer of 10 Tui Glen Rd, Birkenhead, Auckland. This note is
necessitated by legislation promoted by Helen Clark of 4 Cromwell St,
Mt Eden, Auckland.
More information about our policies can be found at www.lp.org.nz