Personal tools
You are here: Home InternetNZ Activity New Zealand 2008-General-Election-Questionnaire Libertarianz

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.

-----

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

Document Actions