Coddington Deborah: Copyright (Parallel Importation of Films and Onus of Proof) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
Coddington Deborah: Copyright (Parallel Importation of Films and Onus of Proof) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:612;Page:9396] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak to the title the Copyright (Parallel Importation of Films and Onus of Proof) Amendment Bill. There are a number of variations we could have of the title. As the title stands at the moment it does not convey the intention of the bill or what the bill is all about. It is not about copyright at all. It is not about protecting copyright. Copyright is an intellectual property. There is no threat to any copyright owner here. The bill is actually about protecting the licensing rights of big US companies and it could be called a number of things. One title that I am sure the Minister would have loved to call the bill is the “Currying Favour with Dubious Artists Bill”. 
The Government when it set out the purpose of the bill said it was to protect local artists in creative industries. The Minister nods her head. The bill could more honestly be called the “Currying Favour with Local Artists Bill” because that is exactly what it will do. It will give them a false sense of security for 9 months in terms of trying to send people rushing out and forcing them to buy local stuff when the Minister knows that they can use a computer. They can go online and download anything they want—and that leads me to some other titles we could use. Instead of calling the bill the “Copyright (Parallel Importation of Films and Onus of Proof) Amendment Bill” we could call it the “Extra Cash for Pirate Burners Bill” or the “Boost the Piracy Market Bill” or even better still the “Extra Cash for School Kids Bill”. We all know that all kids need do is go on to the Internet—and I do not know how many people in New Zealand are online these days but it is huge proportion of the population—and go into one of the websites that teenagers are very skilful at doing burn their own CDs and sell them in the playground. That is why I say the bill should be titled the “Boost the Piracy Market Bill” or the “Extra Cash for School Kids Bill”. 
Another title for the bill could be the “New Zealand Customs Protecting US Incomes Bill” because that is what the bill will do. That is what the title should state in order to reflect the purpose of the bill because US incomes will be protected by free policing at the border by the New Zealand Customs Service. We could call the bill the “Customs Officers Film Club Maintenance Bill” because customs officers will now be required to view all the DVDs etc. that come through to make sure that they do not breach the legislation and this legislation—as the Minister nodded her head before—is to protect local creative industries. I come back to the title we have now the Copyright (Parallel Importation of Films and Onus of Proof) Amendment Bill. The other point Brent Catchpole alluded to was the onus of proof. Those words in the title turn the whole onus of proof thing on its head and we will come to that later on in the Committee stage when we get to the onus of proof aspect. The Government is stepping on to a very slippery slope with that onus of proof clause in the bill. How far will it continue this—when it slips those sorts of things into titles and uses them as a way to slide things through? 
The other thing I would like to address in the title is the year—2002. Members should look at how long it has already taken us to deal with the bill and every time we go into urgency we get into the situation where we look at how we pass legislation in urgency. The 1999 Speech from the Throne referred to the fact that parallel importing of CDs videos films books and software would be prohibited for 2 years. The Ministry of Economic Development did do a review. We are now at the end of 2003 passing this bill under urgency—and I am sorry that we are keeping the Minister up but these are the facts.