Minutes of Public Policy Committee - 2 July 2008

Present: David Farrar (Chair), David Diprose, Sarah Putt (by phone).

In attendance: Simon Riley, Jordan Carter, Richard Wood.

Apologies: Judy Speight, Stewart Fleming, Rick Shera, Keith Davidson, Chris Streatfield.

Opened: 3.10pm

Minutes of Last Meeting – 5 June 2008

Minutes of last meeting adopted as a true and accurate record.

Action Points / Matters Arising from the Previous Minutes

Not addressed

Copyright – Helping ISPs cope with the new Act

Richard reported:

InternetNZ, ISPANZ, Telecom and Vodafone have contributed financially to secure Rick Shera’s services to create submissions on the Copyright regulations, starting with Notice and Takedown notices.

Two submissions have been filed – one is a joint submission with Rightsholders for where agreement could be reached, while the second is on behalf of ISPs, Telcos ISPANZ and InternetNZ in respect to where there was a difference of opinion with Rightsholders. The Rightsholders are also filing their own separate submission.

The TCF has offered to form a working group to produce any code that might be required, if a code is referred to by regulations.

David Farrar suggested that a way to discourage malicious notices might be to make the regulations require an oath as part of the notice. There was general agreement to see if this was of any use.

AP. Get in touch with Rick about oaths in notices to see if this is possible.

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

It was noted there are internet aspects to parts of the agreement. David Farrar suggested we alert some stakeholders from our copyright symposium and to circulate our draft submission to them,

It was noted we need to push the open and uncaptureable approach and that this agreement has come under the radar.

AP. Alert stakeholders from our copyright symposium to the ACTA agreement.

Broadband Investment Fund

David Farrar stated:

The InternetNZ submission has been filed. An area where we have been firm is that we think applicants shouldn’t be offering services over the broadband infrastructure. We want a clean split.

Sarah noted that TUANZ’s big issue was Open Access – they are putting together a working party on that that will likely not be just internal to TUANZ.

Simon noted that LGNZ and MED have been working on a draft open access document. So LGNZ should be included in the conversation.

TUANZ is looking for what the users will benefit from the most.

There was general discussion about ducts/fibre being open access:

It was pointed out that there is value in a flexible approach where there will be different options that may be better in different circumstances. Different pricing for different levels of access.

It was noted that here had been one strong piece of feedback that you can’t have both open access ducts and open access fibre as it creates perverse incentives.

There are also differences in thinking about what open access is in practice.

NGN Consultation

We are pleased the Commerce Commission has started to look at NGN

They’ve sent out a list of questions. They are all quite complicated.

A half day workshop was proposed, to work out some high level answers for those parts that we want to answer. We have two months to respond to the consultation – 29 August is the deadline for responses.

AP. Staff - propose a couple of dates on the mailing list for a half day NGN workshop.

Accounting Separation

Jordan introduced the subject:

The first telco amendment bill proposed accounting separation and it is an important underpinning of the op sep framework. It is likely it will get little input. We’ve got some budget and we have a proposal from Michael Wigley who suggests John Hagan, a top notch accountant could be asked. They would put together a joint proposal. Deadline is 18 July.

David Farrar said it is a no-brainer. The only issue is cost. But if we don’t get the accounting side right then the whole regime will be a lot weaker than it should be.

AP. Engage Michael Wigley and John Hagan, within budget.

AP. Meeting to review a draft and another meeting to approve final submission, in good time for effective InternetNZ review.

Privacy Review

The Law Commission is undertaking a review of privacy law in New Zealand with a major focus on how technology (particularly the Internet) is impacting privacy.

Our Cyberlaw fellow is very interested in the privacy area and is an obvious resource.

There are 200+ pages to read. No current critical deadlines but there are some big time issues. There is an Australian code in this area.

It was suggested to have a couple of half day seminars involving lawyers, ISPs, Netsafe, Privacy Commission etc.

AP. David and Staff – come up with a proposal for seminars, perhaps set up a tiger team.

AP. Jordan – an issues paper on the study, for the next meeting of the Committee.

Fibre RFP

David Farrar introduced this:

Thanks to staff for launching the RFP. The issue is how we evaluate responses to the RFP. Ultimately it will be a recommendation to Council. Normal to set up a panel. Sensitivity due to differences in Labour and National policy and Jordan and David Farrar are involved in those two parties. We need to make sure we have a process that is good for the reputation of InternetNZ and takes account of the skills people can offer.

We should get someone independent to chair such a panel. Michael Wigley would be a good choice. Doug Mercer would be on the panel, also Simon and Richard.

The question is whether David Farrar and Jordan should be on the panel. Michael as chair would make a recommendation on who should be on the panel. And note that this panel is only recommending the RFP consultant who gets awarded the contract, for a final decision by the InternetNZ Council.

The committee sees transparency is the key. David Farrar and Jordan have declared their interests.

Michael is also assisting in getting word out about the RFP. Sarah was asked to highlight it on the TUANZ blog.

Rural Broadband Working Party

Jordan reported:

The working party ran out of steam. Things kept moving on, it was taking to long to finalise document. We will hand in what there is as a final draft and leave it as that. It is useful and will get into the mix. Officials really want to see it. We will include some recommendations.

TSO

The Minister has called for more input but it’s not clear what he is looking for. Seems no great urgency to make a further submission. Our position hasn’t changed.

It was speculated that the Minister may not want to continue with the TSO. He has promised a decision before the Election. We should lobby for National not to oppose this if that is the direction.

Problem politically with saying getting rid of local free calling. TSO might be likely to go to non-funding or contestable funding. But not seeing that outcome will eliminate free local calling.

AP. Discuss TSO and other policy issues with Maurice Williamson

Political Debate pre-election

David meeting with a senior news producer for TVNZ so will talk about possibility.

AP. Set two tentative dates relating to the speculated election dates and start securing a venue.

Telcon

Jordan reported:

Smaller than usual but good tone. 100-odd people at peak. Ralph chaired. Nothing unusual.

TUANZ Rural

Jordan attending:

About to start, interesting looking programme.

NetSafe

Jordan attending, as well as Michael Wallmannsberger:

In Queenstown at end of month. A big international conference.

http://www.cybersafety.org.nz/conference08/

OECD Ministerial Meeting
Jordan reported:

In Seoul. That was interesting but was all decided in advance at a premeeting. Some interesting papers came out of it. Geoff Huston wrote a report on the conference, which is available online:

http://www.circleid.com/posts/86241_future_of_internet_political_view/

Other Business:

Expected that we will continue meeting until any new structure is advised by the new Executive Board.

Meeting Closed: 4.05pm

Date of next meeting: August 7^th in Auckland

Signed as a true and correct record:

…………………………………………………

David Farrar, Member, Chair