Lees-Galloway Iain: Trade Marks Amendment Bill Copyright Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
Lees-Galloway Iain: Trade Marks Amendment Bill Copyright Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
[Volume:675;Page:21152] 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 I think it is fair to say that I am somewhat surprised to find myself on my feet at this point. I would have thought that Government members would have a little bit more to say about this important legislation but never mind. They are obviously giving somebody somewhere some time to go away and ponder the important interesting and probing questions posed by my colleague the Hon Pete Hodgson. I think they were excellent questions— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: We like multiple-choice questions. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: Maurice Williamson said he prefers multiple-choice questions. Maybe the answers are A C D C A C D and C. I do not know. They are usually the answers that got most people through fifth form—or they did back in my day. Fifth form does not even exist any more these days. 
We are on the third readings of the Trade Marks Amendment Bill and the Copyright Amendment Bill (No 2). Labour originally introduced this legislation and we are happy to continue supporting it. It has been described by Maryan Street as being OK legislation. They are not bills that we are showing a huge amount of enthusiasm for but they are those technical bills that are very very important to ensure that things keep happening that our economy keeps moving and that in this age of the global economy and global trade New Zealand is able to participate in the global economy as a receiver of goods across our borders and to ensure that the goods we receive and that New Zealanders purchase within New Zealand are of high quality and are counterfeit goods as rarely as possible. The bills ensure that we are able to protect our goods that we send offshore as well as our intellectual property our ideas and all the things that we send out into the world as traders in the global market. 
This legislation was originally a Labour bill and we are happy to support it. In fact the original bill has been broken into two bills that further New Zealand’s commitment to building international trade rules which we all know are vital to ensuring that trade is both fair and free. We know in this day and age that people are much more conscious about where their goods come from and about the workplace relations and the employment laws under which people who are making those goods labour. By ensuring that they are buying the genuine article rather than a counterfeit article people have a much better idea as to where those goods were made who made them and under what conditions they were made. That is important to consumers these days. 
It is also very important to know that the environmental practices of the companies that are manufacturing these goods are satisfactory and just. People purchasing furniture—and I used this example when we were talking about the National Animal Identification and Tracing Bill the other day—want to know that it has not come from rainforest timber or some operation that is engaging in deforestation. They want to know that that timber is sustainable and they want to know of the other environmental impacts—the impacts of transport the impacts of any chemicals that are being used and all the other potential impacts of manufacturing any type of goods. People have a much better opportunity to trace those goods if they are the genuine trademarked article as these bills allow us to enforce. They allow us to enforce the treaties that ensure that those trademarks are robust. 
The legislation will as I said enable innovative New Zealand companies to more easily protect their trademarks in multiple jurisdictions offshore. We know that all countries and all companies in some jurisdictions struggle to be able to ensure that their trademarks are protected and that in fact the local government and local jurisdiction do not actively allow people in those jurisdictions to engage in counterfeiting. The bills enable the Ministry of Economic Development and the Customs Service to more easily enforce criminal offence provisions by providing powers such as entry and examination without a warrant as well as entry and search under a search warrant. 
I found Maurice Williamson’s contribution to the debate to be most fascinating. He discussed the impacts of counterfeiting the enormous level of counterfeit product that is available around the world and the projected growth of that product. Indeed allowing our economic development and customs officials greater scope to enforce the provisions we have to enable trademark and copyright enforcement is an important aspect in trying to curtail that international trade in counterfeit products. The bills expressly provide that the police have the same powers as enforcement officers and that is an important aspect in that enforcement as well. 
It is important that New Zealand plays its part and is leading some of the areas of standards development in this area. Obviously as a nation that relies on trade and exports it is important that we are a leader in this field and that we are seen to be a leader in this field. Harmonising our laws with international standards makes good sense. I think it is fair to point out that we are not exactly the first country to be signing up to most of these treaties; most of these treaties have long lists of States that are members of the treaty. Even though really we have been practising the terms of those treaties for some time it has taken us a little while—and Pete Hodgson questioned what has taken us so long—to officially ratify those treaties and to bring them into law. Counterfeit trade can produce a significant amount of money which is attractive to criminal organisations looking to fund more serious illicit trades. That is another important reason why we should be clamping down on this. 
As other members have discussed by introducing these two laws we are essentially ratifying three treaties and protocols. The first is the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks (Madrid Protocol) which provides a system that simplifies the procedures required for a trademark owner to protect their trademark overseas. Joining the Madrid Protocol will provide New Zealand trademark owners with the possibility of having their trademarks protected overseas by filing one single application for the registration of a trademark with the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand and designating one or more overseas countries that are members of the Madrid Protocol where protection is sought. Overseas trademark owners would also be able to use the Madrid Protocol to protect their trademarks here in New Zealand. 
Joining the Madrid Protocol will also simplify the subsequent management of overseas-registered trademarks. It is possible to renew or record subsequent changes to the trademark registration in each country using the Madrid Protocol through a single procedural step rather than making a request directly in each country. The legislation amends the Trade Marks Act to facilitate the implementation of the international registration regime for trademarks under the Madrid Protocol including providing for regulations to be made for the purpose of giving effect to New Zealand’s obligations under the Madrid Protocol. This is a streamlining process to ensure that people who want to register their trademarks internationally are able to do it simply without too much fuss or bother. These things are never entirely simple but this is a method of ensuring that it is easier than it might otherwise be. 
The other agreements that we are signing up to are the Nice agreement and the Singapore treaty. The Nice agreement provides a classification system for goods and services for the purposes of registering trademarks and the Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks aims to make national trademark registration systems more user-friendly and to reduce the business compliance costs for trademark owners. All of these agreements are making the business of registering trademarks both here in New Zealand and internationally much simpler. They allow New Zealand to engage in global economies and for that reason Labour is very very happy to support the continued passage of this legislation.