Public Policy Committee Report to Council 17/12/05

Version 1.0 - 08 December 2005
For: Council on 17 December 2005
Status: Public

The Committee met on 3 November 2005 in Auckland and on 1 December in Auckland and Vancouver!

Committee generally happy with proposed determination, however noted there are some aspects which were agreed between TCL and TCNZ which other ISPs might seek to vary by negotiation or a further determination
Major focus is to protect the proposed determination. ED to offer briefings to organizations critical of it
Staff also asked to provide a summary of the major issues in the determination, what our positions were on them, and what the outcomes

Legislation has been introduced to Parliament
InternetNZ has asked all parties to support the bill at first reading. It has strongly supported the bill, with the exception of the proposed enforcement regime which would place considerable costs on ISPs
Legal advice on the Bill has been commissioned from Lowndes Jordan
A half day workshop is planned to develop an alternate enforcement mechanism to propose to Government. This is provisionally scheduled for the week commencing 19 September.

The Committee noted the formation of ISPANZ and supported InternetNZ’s offer of support to ISPANZ
It was felt however that if ISPANZ had membership restrictions, this would limit the support InternetNZ could give ISPANZ. Any initial restrictions no longer exist..

A revised code has been produced.
The Telecommunications Carriers Forum has produced a customer complaints code which has significant consumer protection in it, and some or many ISPs may also sign this.
InternetNZ has sought legal advice on the two codes, focusing on areas of overlap and whether the best practice sections of the Internet CoP could possibly be used as an appendix to the TCF code.

In the new year, relevant Officers and staff will offer to meet with IT spokespersons from all parties

The trial of the anti-child pornography filtering list known as Cleanfeed started in November.
We are very grateful to Cr Mark Harris for agreeing at late notice to undertake the testing, under the supervision of the DIA Censorship Section and the Classification Office
A formal report will be considered by the Committee and reported to Council in due course.

The following items are sought for inclusion/addition in the 2006/07 business plan

Digital Strategy Projects $20,000
Local Government Representation $10,000
Internet Regulatory Issues $100,000 (with matching income of $50,000 from ISPs or ISPANZ) (was $15,000 this year)
Parliamentary Submissions up to $45,000 (from $30,000)

Members who attended though the conference went very well and congratulations to Simon Riley for this initiative were minuted.