Council Minutes for 16 June 2006

Status: Draft

1.00 - 1.25pm Council alone time.

WELCOME FROM CHAIR: The President opened the meeting at 1.25pm

ATTENDANCE:

a. PRESENT
Colin Jackson (President)
David Farrar (Vice President)
Michael Wallmannsberger (Secretary)
Simon Riley
Michael Sutton
Janet Mazenier
David Harris
Mark Harris
Peter Macaulay
Jennifer Northover
Rodney Prescott

b. IN ATTENDANCE
Keith Davidson (Executive Director)
Jordan Carter (Research & Policy Officer)
Debbie Monahan (Domain Name Commissioner)
Frank March (Chair NZOC)
Nick Griffin (General Manager NZRS)
Nick Wallingford (Technical Policy Officer)
Susi Fookes (Project Administrator)
Lee Sycamore (Member)

1. APOLOGIES

Cr Northover for lateness due to flight being diverted to Christchurch.

The Treasurer was unable to attend due to a lightning strike at his home.

Cr Prescott - for lateness.

2. Declaration of Councillor Interests

Councillor interests are as published.

Amendments to declaration:

Cr Sutton noted that he has met with further parties that are involved with ENUM for their own interests.

Action Point: Executive Director to remind Janet Mazenier to complete a Declaration of Councillor Interests.

It was requested that Councillor Interests be published in future Council papers.

3. Consideration of Agenda - In Committee Items

The following items may need to be moved into committee: - Appointments panel
- Fellows nomination

It was noted that other items may come up. Including the broadband campaign and ENUM.

1.30pm Cr Prescott arrived.

It was agreed to move the Remuneration item to the end of agenda so Cr Northover may be present.

4. Consent agenda

RN 51/06 (President/Cr Mark Harris) "THAT the minutes of the meeting held on 28 April 2006 be received and adopted as a true and correct record, AND THAT the following reports be received and any recommendations therein adopted."

CARRIED U

5. Matter Arising from the Minutes

As requested action points are now added to Council papers and status noted.

The Cleanfeed Trial report is awaiting discussion in the Public Policy Committee.

Cr Macaulay requested the Executive Director to seek legal advice on the obligation to Maori language in the Internet. The Executive Director noted that he did a simple search of the Maori language act, and came to the conclusion that we are not obliged to anything.

Budget requests are in the process of being actioned, will be tied back next month.

Council papers are now spiral bound (wire binding).

It was requested that budget requests need to be tied back to a budget line and should be front end in the ED's report. The Executive Director noted that this is being actioned.

4. InternetNZ's relationship with ICANN

The Vice President gave an update on InternetNZ's relationship with ICANN.

InternetNZ supports ICANN under the agreement that they are in the private sector rather than being under control by any country's government.

This being the agreement, two issues that conflict with this have arisen. The first being ICANN's contract with Verisign, ICANN seem to have buckled under legal pressure. The second issue declining the .xxx top level domain. This is more serious as they had given the primary go ahead, but backed down under pressure from the US government.

The International Affairs Committee would like Council direction on this matter. The floor was open to discussion.

There was concern that this behaviour with .xxx becomes as precedent, other gTLDs could face the same treatment.

1.41pm Frank March and Debbie Monahan joined the meeting.

The President expressly welcomed Frank to speak on the issue.

It was noted that looking in from the outside they are closer to fulfilling their mandate than ever before. However, seeing this from the inside leads one to question whether they are approaching it in the right way.

Frank March agreed that externally they are performing well and that there are some issues such as the .xxx decision. On a positive note, he added that ICANN taught the UN at WSIS valuable lessons in equal speaking and webcasting.

2.03pm Nick Griffin joined the meeting.

Council discussed CIRA's decision to remove themselves from the working groups involved with ICANN and to remove funding.

Action Point: (Executive Director/ICANN team) To support CIRA's stand as per their 14 June 2006 letter.

RN 52/06 (Cr Macaulay/Vice President) "THAT InternetNZ supports CIRA's recommendation that ICANN engage a non-governmental, independent consultant to conduct a wide-reaching, public review of ICANN's transparency, accountability and the fairness of its processes and provide a road-map for ICANN's reform."

CARRIED U

Action Point: (Executive Director/ICANN team) In letter to ICANN, InternetNZ will advise ICANN that it has decided to defer consideration of entering into an Accountability Framework, and will look for signs that ICANN is positively responding to a path forward.

Frank March was invited to give the New Zealand government's view on GAC, he responded that there is not a set view.

There was discussion on the New Zealand government's participation. It was agreed that the discussion should be continued by the IAC.

Action Point: (IAC) To consider the Riley discussion on InternetNZ encouraging the New Zealand government participation in ICANN.

The President informed the Council that Donna Hiser has had a bereavement. He continued that Jordan Carter too has had a bereavement.

5. NZOC Report

Frank March spoke to the report. He noted the recent Strategic planning day was successful. He briefly went over a few items that will be covered in the next report including the following: NZOC would like to see NZRS to take a more substantial lead in New Zealand's conversion to IPv6; Will suggest that NZRS may like to set up a system with DNSec.

He noted that they have come to the end of the start up phase of the dispute resolution process.

RN 52/06 (President/Cr Prescott) "THAT NZOC Report for April 2006 be received."

CARRIED U

6. NZRS Report

Nick Griffin introduced the NZRS report and opened the floor to questions.

Cr David Harris asked why there was such a significant rise in .geek names. Nick responded that it was due to the giveaway of .geek names at the ICANN - Wellington meeting.

The President thanked the Company for their strong technical and financial performance. Council applauded in agreement.

RN 53/06 (President/Cr David Harris) "THAT the NZRS Company Report for the fourth quarter of 2005/2006 be received."

CARRIED U

2.46pm Nick Griffin and Debbie Monahan left the meeting.

7. InternetNZ Fellows Nomination (in Ctte)

2.46 - 2.55pm Council went into committee.

RN 54/06 (President/Secretary) "THAT the recommendation from the Fellows for awarding a new InternetNZ Fellow be endorsed, and the new Fellow announced at the 2006 AGM"

CARRIED U

Action Point: Frank March to prepare a Fellows Appointment process within 3 months.

8. Appointments panel

2.56 - 3.12pm Council went into committee.

3.12 - 3.20pm Council took a short break.

3.20pm Cr Northover arrived.

RN 55/06 (President/Cr Macaulay) "THAT Council confirms the appointment of the following directors of NZRS and members of NZOC:

NZRS:

Donna Hiser be re-appointed from the 2006 AGM

Doug Mercer from the date of completion of his current consultancy contract with NZRS

Merv Delaney retires at the 2006 AGM as per the tenure policy. He will be re-appointed for the period until the conclusion of Doug Mercers consultancy contract.

NZOC:

Richard Currey, Term: 3 years

Frank March, Term: 2 years

David Russell, Term: 1 year

Note: The information is to be kept strictly confidential to Council until CoB Wednesday 21 June, to allow NZRS time for announcements.

CARRIED

Abstention: Cr Mazenier (as she arrived back to the meeting during the reading of the recommendations)

9. Remuneration (Fees/Honoraria) Review

Cr Northover spoke briefly on the item. She invited questions from the floor.

Cr Riley asked her to expand on number 5. Cr Northover explained that much of Council work is now handled in sub-committees. The review would like to recognise that in some way.

Cr Northover noted that recommendations are to come to an evote next week.

Action Point: (Susi Fookes) to coordinate a teleconference of the Remuneration Review panel, in discussion with Jennifer Northover, in a few weeks.

The Executive Director suggested staff could take a lead role in the production of the paper as it is a disinterested party.

RN 56/06 (President/ ) "THAT the progress report of the Remuneration Review taskforce be received."

CARRIED

Jennifer abstained.

10. Membership plan

The Executive Director spoke about the draft plan. He noted that it is difficult to develop as a 'hook' has not yet been decided on. He then invited the floor to make suggestions for 'hooks'.

Cr Riley asked after the placement of the membership advertisements. The Executive Director said that last year $30,000 was spent. This year the budget has been trimmed to $10,000. It was agreed that Council is to receive prior notice to the running of these adverts in the future. The Secretary suggested that instead of solely covering what we do as before - maybe a hook would be to focus on InternetNZ's key achievements. Cr Riley noted that this advertising needs to be done as part of the membership plan.

A few 'hook' options were discussed. Free email address, a multi year membership option were ideas offered.

Cr Riley pointed out that Council is still struggling to decide whether we InternetNZ would like to target corporate or individual membership.

RN 56/06 (Cr Prescott/Cr Sutton) "THAT Council approve the draft membership plan and delegate further development and execution."

CARRIED U

3.52 - 4.08pm the meeting broke for afternoon tea.

4.08pm Lee Sycamore joined the meeting.

11. Public Policy Committee Report/Broadband Campaign

The Vice President spoke about the campaign, noting there has been a lot of positive work happening.

He also noted that they had a good meeting with ISPANZ recently in which they recommended ISPANZ uses the coming telco conference to suggest some voluntary steps for Telecom to take.

The Executive Director said that he has had discussions with ISPANZ about InternetNZ hiring a research policy analyst on a 12 - 18 month contract to work solely on this campaign. ISPANZ volunteered 25% of the cost. The next step is to find the right person to recruit.

The Executive Director continued that the Committee wrote to Telecom asking for a quick win, there has been no reply as yet. Jordan Carter noted that they released the report from Wairua Consulting on the bad aspects of data caps. InternetNZ believes that the quick win is the removal of data caps. But now there is a quick win focus is on UBS, so we need to be careful not to mix the message.

Jordan Carter read a media statement just released by the Commerce Commission (Commissioner welcomes move on telecommunication changes).

RN 57/06 (Vice President/Cr Prescott) "THAT the report of the Public Policy Committee be received and adopted."

CARRIED U

12. Executive Director's Summary of Resolutions

RN 58/06 (President/Secretary) "THAT the Appointment Panel Terms of Reference be approved."

RN 59/06 (President/Secretary) "THAT InternetNZ vote in favour of the proposed ICANN bylaws changes."

RN 60/06 (President/Secretary) "THAT Council note that staff will lodge a submission, in line with previously agreed InternetNZ policy positions and our ongoing principles."

RN 61/06 (President/Secretary) "THAT Council approve the payment of a donation of approximately $10 - 12K to ICANN."

RN 62/06 (President/Secretary) " THAT Council endorse the Strategic and Business Planning Process and timetable."

CARRIED U

Cr Sutton asked that ENUM be included in the Council papers even if there is no change. The Executive Director mentioned that staff intends to make some change to the Council papers to easily identify 'old material' so it does not need to be re-read.

13. General Business

4.40 - 4.50pm Council went into committee.

Jordan Carter updated Council on the new letter to the industry from Theresa Gating. This was given to media at 2.23pm today. Council agreed to welcome this.

The Executive Director informed Council of the GNC Committee report that was given two days ago.

RN 63/06 (Cr David Harris/Cr Prescott) "THAT the GNC Committee report be accepted."

CARRIED U

The proposed membership changes to the constitution came out this morning. It was noted that Council need to put the proposal to the members at the AGM. This is a first draft from GNC.

The Executive Committee discussed a desire to have a celebratory event. The Executive Director asked Council what level of celebration they would like to see. Council agreed this is appropriate, while did not finalise clear direction on what level of celebration is needed.

It was noted that the AGM is to be held in Wellington with remote venues in Auckland and Dunedin.

Cr Sutton took the opportunity to thank Council for their support and assistance during his term. Cr Mazenier also thanked Council for the support over the short time she has been on Council. She noted that it is very difficult being a new Councillor and if re-elected, offered to help in the induction of the other new Councillors.

5pm The President closed the meeting.

Action Points from Council on 16 June 2006