Martin Tracey: Harmful Digital Communications Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMartin Tracey: Harmful Digital Communications Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 03 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15167. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in support of the Harmful Digital Communications Bill. As my colleagues have said it is definitely time that this legislation came into the House.I am the chair of the board of Mahurangi College and on a daily basis we deal with students who are bullied or traumatised. I think that many of us adults now realise that—and I believe that as Kate Wilkinson said young people should come and speak to the Justice and Electoral Committee—what is so awful about this type of bullying is that there is no escape from it. It follows these young people into their homes. It follows them and they fear opening their Gmail account or their MSN Hotmail account. They fear looking at their phone when there is a text message. They have fear all the time.We have several questions that we hope will be fleshed out during the period of time that this bill is with the select committee. When I was a kid a troll was a person who lived under a bridge inThe Three Billy Goats Gruff. Today trolling is something that happens on Twitter or other accounts. For those New Zealanders out there who like me or my mum do not know what I am talking about that is when no matter what you post online somebody decides they are going to say something negative about it. There will never be a good comment from a troll on Twitter. It will be interesting to know whether that will actually at the end of the day be considered harm under this bill. Does a person have the right to tweet on an account or post on Facebook or whatever and not be harassed in that way? It is basically digital stalking.We do believe that it is time for the bill and we commend the Minister of Justice for bringing the bill to the House. We note that point 8 of the regulatory impact statement has got a definition: “Harmful digital communications cyber-bullying and digital harassment can take a variety of forms including emails texts phone messages blog sites forums and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. These mediums can be used to intimidate spread damaging or degrading rumours publish invasive and distressing photographs and harass people.” I guess that New Zealand First would see that as addressing what we call the invisible man theory. If human beings think they cannot be seen and if they think they cannot be caught there are levels they will go to that they will not go to if they are looking a person in the eye or if somebody can see them take those actions.We need to send a very clear message to not just those who are currently using this environment for harassment but actually all young people and all people using those social media sites that they are a public forum. Somewhere somebody can see what you post and when you post it. I think that for selfies and things like that people have taken a photo sent it for a moment and then been caught out thinking that it goes away. It does not take a second for somebody to take a snapshot of it or—I am not quite sure what it is called actually on Facebook—they take a shot of the page and then it is there for ever.Denise Roche: A screenshot.TRACEY MARTIN: A screenshot—thank you very much.I would also like to know whether—when we actually get down to the nitty-gritty of this—when somebody is actually found to have breached the law and caused harm we are going to try to come up with a digital solution to remove that item from the internet.There are images out there that once they have been taken down from one site have been shared and placed in so many other places. How will we pull those back? Whose responsibility is that? And how long does the period of harm have to be? Let us just take for example young people in their 20s today who go out and like all of us party. They party with their friends. I know a young man for example—Chris Auchinvole: Oho!TRACEY MARTIN: I do I do. I know several young men but I will talk about this one particularly. He is not the young man yonder so we do not have to worry about that. I know a young man who went out partying with friends and who imbibed too much of the alcoholic beverage and found himself on the floor singing rollicking pirate songs I think they were and a video was taken. That young man now wants to climb a corporate ladder and that video has appeared. That video has appeared on YouTube. Does his prospective employer go to YouTube as has been mentioned before and go and have a look at Facebook and other things to see what this young man has been doing and will that affect his ability to climb the ladder of any corporation or company? I would like to know how long ago the image had to take place or how long the posting has to have been there. How long is the extension of harm? What if a photo was put up one day and now 10 years down the track actually creates harm inside an employment environment?We really need to have some strong digital citizenship training inside our schools around those things. I believe if a penalty is applied that will drive some more of that training around the digital citizenship that is required both for those who post for very reasonable reasons and for those who actually post to harm others.New Zealand First has some concerns around the safe harbour provision. I go to the explanatory note of the bill which under “Safe harbour provisions” says: “The purpose of this is to ensure that a content host cannot be held liable for content they host that is posted by another person but which the host does not know about.” My question is upon whom does the burden of proof lie with regard to that statement? Is it the victim who now needs to actually prove that the host was aware that this posting was up and that they did not remove it when they had the abilities to do so? And would a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old be able to do that? Is this workable for a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old? They are among the many victims that I see. So those are questions we would like have.I am a little bit concerned by Gareth Hughes’ comments that the internet itself is just an enabler. It sounds a little bit to me like the argument of the gun lobby in the States that actually it is not guns that kill people; it is people with guns. There is a responsibility on the hosting agency. There is a responsibility on those people who carry those sites.We have concerns. If we recognise for example that that is actually a problem then why do we say that it does not have to be mandatory? There is a section in the explanatory note of the bill that states: “While not a mandatory authority this would have significant persuasive powers in relation to website hosts or ISPs operating outside New Zealand jurisdiction.” We run into that cross-country jurisdiction issue. It is going to be something that will have to be looked at very carefully and it is a continuation of the issue of how international law is going to need to be aligned around these issues. But if we recognise that it is harmful why are we placing it on a voluntary basis? Why are we not saying that this needs to be put in place before you can broadcast here? Other Governments do that. Other Governments make decisions about websites that will or will not come into their nation.I also want to just highlight another area clause 10 of the bill “Proceedings may be brought in District Court”. I highlight clause 10(1)(c) where the principal of aneducational establishment if the individual concerned is a student at the establishment and with the consent of the student can bring proceedings to the District Court. Who pays for that? Where is that money coming from? If it is a teacher does that mean that the teacher themselves must bring the case? I would argue that the board of trustees as a good employer has a responsibility towards any teacher who has had damaging information posted about them by students to actually pursue the removal of that material from the internet. I have known students who took their phones with cameras into classes took videos of their teachers behind their textbooks and then put them up for comment from other students and so on and so forth or who graded teachers etc. and not in a constructive way. Teachers are appraised appropriately but putting videos up on Facebook to let every man and his dog write what they think about them is not appropriate. So I have some issues around the fact that first if a principal brings proceedings there is a cost to the school for that and two that as a good employer teachers should also be covered by this. A principal or board of trustees should be able to take this action to protect their staff.But all in all it is time for this legislation. New Zealand First will support it—Scott Simpson: Good.TRACEY MARTIN: —and we look forward to it coming back to the House with some amendments. We understand that Mr Simpson agrees with us on that so that is great. So we support the bill and commend it to the House.