Fairbrother Russell: Unsolicited Electronic Messages Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Fairbrother Russell: Unsolicited Electronic Messages Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 27 February 2007. Volume:637;Page:7724. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) 
: 
 I always thought that members had to stand while they were giving their speeches. I was looking as hard as I could at the previous speaker Rodney Hide but I did not see him standing once. However maybe he will grow into the role. My attention was particularly drawn by his comment about the Minister David Cunliffe whom he had just praised as being an abysmal failure. When a leader of a party takes six members of Parliament into an election and comes out with two one has to wonder what definition of success that might be. Then when those two— 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If we look through all the Speakers’ rulings and the Standing Orders there surely has to be something there about a member who won his seat being lectured about failure by a member who lost his seat. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER 
: But it is worse than that—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: When the member raises a point of order he will please wait for the Speaker to acknowledge him before going into it. And it was not a point of order. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER 
: The member was in fact standing so perhaps that should have been acknowledged a bit earlier. It is sometime difficult to see with that speaker. 
This spam bill as the member mentions would keep the activities of electronic messages relevant in this country—unlike that speaker who returned to this Parliament with two MPs. Those MPs spent most of last year either learning to dance or training to be soldiers. Of course I guess those are some of the great tragedies of the ACT party. 
But I want to speak on the third reading of the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Bill. [ 
Interruption 
] Go on. Keep them coming. The member is not prepared to speak on the bill. Why is that? It is because the enforcement procedures in this bill are designed for the member’s party. This bill could have been written after the drafter read a book that was published before the last election a book that harks back to T S Eliot and a book that everyone in this Parliament read with some eagerness: a book called  
The Hollow Men 
. The point about that book is that it would have been described as a civil event as described in the enforcement provisions of the bill. 
Let us see what a civil event is as found in clause 11. This clause would apply entirely to the emails from an exclusive religious sect that offered the National Party $1 million to help it win the last election. Despite the gift of $1 million the National Party just could not manage it—even with that $1 million bonus. This bill would have helped John Key to recognise spam email about which he said: “I might have opened it but I didn’t smoke it.” Of course an email offering John Key $1 million would be chicken feed. He would not be bothered by such a small amount as $1 million. But if he had bothered to read the email from a sect that does not vote with its offer to win National an election with $1 million and to get the troops out in the electorates—[ 
Interruption 
] I tell Mr Finlayson to raise his point of order at the end of the matter. He should read the Standing Orders. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Speaker’s ruling 112/8 states: “Members must confine themselves to the main purposes and contents of the bill; they must not deal at length with matters not provided for in the bill.” The drivel the member is speaking clearly does not come within third reading parameters. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: No I do not need any assistance thank you Mr Hide. [ 
Interruption 
] No I am not. The key to the matter is probably the phrase “at length” and that is a judgment I would make. The member is using references by way of example but always referring to the bill. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Is this a new point of order Rodney Hide? 
Rodney Hide 
: Indeed it is. I think the point to be made here is that we should allow Mr Fairbrother to continue his speech without interruption—that is why I was wanting to get in on the point—because it is a really great exposition as to why one should not have a drink over dinner. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: That is a reflection that should not be made but then again nor should Mr Fairbrother have reflected on Mr Hide’s height. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER 
: He is a man of considerable stature from some angles. But if Mr Hide is worried because he had a drink over dinner and cannot make sense of this speech that is his problem. 
Under clause 11 a recipient of an email offering $1 million on a promise to win an election would understand immediately who had sent the email. There are four prerequisites. First of all the message must clearly and accurately identify the person who authorised the sending of the message. Well who in this country would offer $1 million over and above election spending to help to win an election if he or she were not readily identifiable? Of course when that email says “We are working with you to win the campaign.” then clearly the provision of clause 11(a) is satisfied: “the message clearly and accurately identifies the person who authorised the sending of the message;”. So National members would welcome this bill because it would help them to identify unsolicited electronic messages. But clause 11(b) does more than that; it states that the message must include “accurate information about how the recipient can readily contact that person;”. 
Let us look at those emails in  
The Hollow Men 
 and at the information that was included therein. First of all they included the names of certain individuals. That fact would help to identify them. Secondly one email said that the Exclusive Brethren wanted to overthrow the Labour Government and National was the only option it had in order to do so—pathetic though it was. It would do that in working with National by advancing the party or by giving it $1 million over and above its election spending cap. So it was quite clear that the message accurately identified how the recipient could contact that person. Though we may read an email or open it but claim not to have read it we would know if we had read it how to contact that person. So clause 11 would have helped the National Party to identify the spam emails it received before the last election which are a subject of that book  
The Hollow Men. 
The third provision in clause 11 at paragraph (c) states: “the information referred to … complies with any conditions specified in the regulations;”. Well there we have a bit of bother because we do not quite know what that is the regulations not yet having been passed. But paragraph (d) states that “the information referred to … is reasonably likely to be valid for at least 30 days after the message is sent.” We can just take ourselves back to page 83 or thereabouts of  
The Hollow  
Men. The particular email that referred to $1 million for the next election was sent as I recall it within the 30-day period. 
So we have a bill now that the National Party has been mute upon during the third reading. National members have been mute because they know that this bill is being passed to handle their unread correspondence by email. We also know that they could then send off somebody to a District Court to get a search warrant. In relation to a search warrant clause 48(1) states: “An enforcement officer may apply for a search warrant to search a place or thing.” The enforcement officer must have made reasonable inquiries. We all know from the common law that that officer under clause 48(1A) does not personally have to make reasonable inquiries; it is sufficient for another colleague or for someone whom he or she has sufficient reason to trust to have made those reasonable inquiries. So the body set up to enforce the provisions which were so scoffed at by Mr Hide gets real teeth under clause 48 because its personnel working collectively can make those reasonable inquiries described in clause 48(1A). 
Once the application is made the District Court has the discretion to issue a search warrant if there is reasonable grounds for it to believe that a civil liability event has been or is being committed. Of course that takes us back entirely to the book  
The Hollow Men  
and to clause 11 because we know that the people in the National Party who claim to have opened the email but not read it would take some protection in saying they did not know who it came from. That is despite the fact that the sender was offering them $1 million within about 30 days in order to try to buy an election. 
This bill is very very important because it sets a benchmark for proper behaviour on the Internet and with electronic messages—emails. No longer will members of the party opposite be able to stand in this House or appear in the press and say they did not know where something came from. If they were to say that then they would be duty-bound to lay a complaint and to have the matter followed through. Did they want to lay the complaint? Did they want the matter to be followed through? Did they want to reveal that they knew all the time who had sent the email offering $1 million? Did they want to know who the campaign manager in Napier was dealing with in the Exclusive Brethren to get the troops out in order to grab votes that would not have been there for the National Party otherwise? Did they want to know who was organising the telephone banks and who was ringing up and passing off messages of unreliability? A “brother” of unsolicited electronic messages is a telephone call from the telephone banks of those people who claim to be Christians but who hide behind anonymity and the emails that this bill is designed to put an end to. 
This is a very important piece of legislation. It will put an end to such rubbish as bedevilled the last election. And the election in 2008 will see Labour returned with a victory because the emperor on the other side will be found to have no clothes.