Copeland Gordon: Unsolicited Electronic Messages Bill — Second Reading 
Copeland Gordon: Unsolicited Electronic Messages Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:636;Page:6857] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 That speech was a very interesting one for me to follow on from and I for one hope that Rodney Hide will follow up on what he said and lodge a complaint with the police. At the very least as he pointed out we in a free and open democracy should be looking at this. Thinking back we remember that Watergate started off as one small burglary. But Watergate grew and grew until eventually it forced the resignation of the President of the United States. If indeed we have seen a pattern of similar covert behaviour in our nation then it is something we should worry about. So I think that the points the member brought to the attention of the House need to be addressed by the Government and indeed by Parliament. 
United Future welcomes this Unsolicited Electronic Messages Bill to tackle the urgent problem of unsolicited electronic messages commonly known as spam. The creation of the Internet which I understand now has about 1 billion participants has given the people of the Earth unprecedented access to information and has been an irreplaceable element in the globalisation of commercial and political activity. Undoubtedly therefore the creation of the Internet and the ability to send messages instantly and electronically has greatly advanced the common good. As we also know however there is also a downside and it is called spam. Microsoft one of the organisations that gave evidence at the Commerce Committee on this bill told us that 4 billion spam messages a day currently enter its network alone. I understand that in the short period of time between that organisation’s representatives appearing before the select committee and now that number has grown from 4 billion to 10 billion. It has more than doubled and at current rates we should see it doubling again. I am told that it is now possible to send up to 1 million spam messages for $10. So we have a massive problem on our hands. In many ways therefore spam is the curse of the Internet and I am delighted—for the benefit of Rodney Hide—that the New Zealand Government in concert with many other Governments around the world is now taking positive steps through this bill to reduce control and rein in gratuitous spam. 
In my speech today I want particularly to focus on gratuitous spam containing sexually orientated material. This matter was drawn to the attention of the committee by Judge David Henry who noted that spam messages containing links to pornography sites are not covered by the Films Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993 and that the commercial nature of the definition of spam may not therefore adequately protect children. I shared those concerns and fully back the recommendations of the committee to amend the bill so that the functions of the enforcement department are broadened to allow levels of gratuitous spam that contains sexually orientated material whether or not it is commercial in nature to be monitored and controlled. 
Spam containing sexually explicit material is somewhat in a class of its own. The original spam may not be selling anything and therefore is not commercial but it may contain soft porn images and links to provide a teaser that grooms the recipient to visit a pornographic website. At that point the transaction certainly becomes commercial. I understand that pornography on the Internet is now worth tens of billions of dollars per annum and is growing at the rate of thousands of new porn sites every week. All of this represents a threat to New Zealand children and is as I know a deep concern to New Zealand parents. My children did not grow up in the Internet age but I am simply amazed at how my grandchildren from age 7 or 8 or younger can surf the net with consummate ease and familiarity. Put that ease of access and skill together with the literally millions of porn sites and the problem becomes all too evident. 
Shortly after the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Bill was reported back to the House I issued a press release drawing attention to the provisions I have just mentioned in relation to sexually orientated material. I was surprised at the information that has been sent to me as a result. Let me quote for example directly from a letter sent to me from a school principal in Auckland. He says this: “The concern is the use of Internet pornography by pre-adolescent though to adolescent boys and girls. The volume of pornography available on the Internet is enormous. It is available in a variety of forms—pictures movies clips story texts. Access is virtually unlimited. Some sites charge and require a credit card although many normally have free samples. Others may require you to click an enter box that declares you are of age to access adult material.” Members can imagine how well that works in the hands of people who are determined to get access. They simply lie about their age. “For thousands of others there is no restriction at all. Teenagers are curious and are likely to look at pornography given the opportunity. They may access it accidentally. Search engines like Google facilitate this. The concern is that the level of access is growing and that many parents have no idea of what is happening or how to limit it. Many are less computer savvy than their children and are unable to monitor their activities effectively.” The letter goes on to lament how little is being done in New Zealand to address this issue. 
That is no longer the case in Australia. The Australian Government has announced a $116 million comprehensive package of measures to crack down on the scourge of Internet pornography. The central part of this package is a national filter scheme costing some $93 million that will be provided over a 3-year period to Australian families free of charge to be installed in their homes. I should say too that filter technology even now has been overtaken; earlier today I saw some breakthrough technology that actually has the capacity to block porn in its entirety. It is really almost  
Star Trek 
 technology. It is now available and already 850000 Malaysian families are hooked into that system for example. It actually blocks and filters out something like 96 percent or more of all pornography on the Internet so it cannot be replicated on the screen of anyone who has that program installed. I forwarded this material on to the Minister for Information Technology the Hon David Cunliffe and I believe that the Government and Parliament need to address this matter with a degree of urgency. All of us are duty-bound to do what we can to protect the beauty and innocence of our children. The corruption of children must never be tolerated as it can wreak great damage on boys and girls as they move into adulthood and hopefully into stable adult relationships. 
The computer industry also needs to play its part. I was encouraged that after the executives of Microsoft New Zealand appeared before the select committee they spontaneously called by my office to say that their interaction with the select committee in relation to spam was such that they now believe they have a real responsibility to rein in the unsatisfactory elements of this wonderful technology; not essentially for commercial gain—although I have no doubt that that may be a part of it—but for the common good of New Zealand and its citizens including children. I applaud the attitude taken by Microsoft and I would challenge other Internet companies and program design companies to follow suit. I believe that Internet service providers and others who take a close interest in the growth of the Internet could also actively take more steps to reduce the exposure of children to pornography. What I am suggesting here is a multifaceted approach whereby we in Parliament could address this issue along with Internet service providers and program designers in companies set up for that purpose. 
In the 1980s it was said that New Zealand had become a sex-saturated society. If those sentiments were true then then the Internet has introduced a veritable flood of objectionable material right into the living rooms of New Zealand families. Therefore we should together resolve to change that situation for the better. This bill makes a small start and takes a positive step in that direction because in future when people get unsolicited sexual material by way of spam on their computers they will be able to contact the enforcement agency and bring that material to its attention. That agency in turn can clamp down on the people who are sending that spam and also of course feed into the international apparatus that we in concert with other nations are building around the globe so that if the spam originates for example from Hungary then the Hungarian Government will come down on the people who are sending it in Hungary or if it is being sent from the United States then the US Government will come down on those people sending it in the United States. 
This needs a worldwide strategy and worldwide action because we have a worldwide problem. The future of our children is too precious for us to run the risk of failing to take whatever steps we can to bring this most unsatisfactory situation to an end. United Future will be supporting the bill both at its second reading and through its remaining stages.