Dean Jacqui: Harmful Digital Communications Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Harmful Digital Communications Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4853. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): That contribution by the member who has just resumed her seat Jacinda Ardern was a good and thoughtful contribution to what is a pretty serious subject and it raised a couple of issues that have also been discussed quite widely during the passage of this bill—that is the impingement on freedom of speech and the approach of this bill being perhaps too heavy-handed. I would argue that the structure of this bill caters for and ameliorates those concerns and perhaps I will explain that a bit later as I go through it. Also I think it is good to recollect that this bill came from a piece of work undertaken by the Law Commission called The News Media meets ‘New Media’: Rights Responsibilities and Regulation in the Digital Age. So this bill has its foundation in some pretty serious work undertaken by the Law Commission. And it was brought to this House and to the attention of Parliament because of a number of very distressing and serious incidents that have happened that are happening now and that will continue to happen in cyberspace. Those incidents might manifest themselves as cyber-bullying. They might manifest themselves as inciting people to commit suicide or as just good old-fashioned bullying in the workplace—particularly as has been noted a number of times while debating this bill with regard to young people who are very vulnerable and very sensitive to people’s opinions and suggestions about them. We all know and we all agree across this House that it is time that this issue was addressed on behalf of young people.The main provisions of this bill are to create a set of 10 communications principles. Those will guide the approved agency which I will talk a bit more about in a minute and also the courts should that become necessary. For example one of those principles might be that a communication should not be threatening intimidating or menacing. As I have mentioned there will be a new civil enforcement regime created which will be an approved agency. That approved agency will receive complaints and where appropriate undertake an investigation into those complaints. The approved agency will have the ability to respond very quickly. The previous speaker was quite right in saying that the digital space moves incredibly quickly. In effect there is no news cycle any more just as there is no delay in digital communications because they are incredibly immediate and their dissemination can be huge—push a button and many many people will now see a message that can never be unsent or undone. So hopefully the agency will be able to resolve complaints pretty quickly and directly with the most serious of those complaints that are not able to be resolved to be referred to the District Court which can then in turn issue take-down and cease and desist notices. What the bill does is provide a legislative mechanism for people to provide for the taking down of damaging and harmful content from websiteseasily quickly and efficiently. It also clarifies the law regarding website hosts and that is in the safe harbour provision that I will talk about in a minute.This bill also makes it an offence to send messages and to put harmful posts online—for example where they are offensive obscene indecent menacing or knowingly false. And you know those incidents are all too common unfortunately. This bill provides for a maximum punishment of up to 2 years’ imprisonment so it is pretty grunty stuff at the higher end. It will also create a new offence of incitement to commit suicide even when a person does not attempt to take their own life. Again that is a pretty grunty measure in this bill. Again that new offence will be punishable by up to 3 years’ imprisonment. This bill also amends the Harassment Act the Privacy Act and the Human Rights Act to ensure that they are up to date for digital communications. This is such a fast-moving space that this bill is bringing some other pieces of legislation along with it because of course in many cases now existing pieces of legislation were written before cellphones and the internet were even imagined.Going back to the civil enforcement regime this was one of the key recommendations of the Law Commission. This Government agrees that when it comes to digital communication we do need better legal options for addressing complaints and for taking action on those complaints. Although I agree with the member Jacinda Ardern that there are existing mechanisms particularly within the school environment and also in perhaps the Youth Court environment I do not see that those existing measures where they work well cannot be utilised by this civil enforcement regime. In fact I would like to think that as part of the mediation provisions that are enabled by this bill those existing mechanisms could be utilised—diversion perhaps or Project Turnaround. Those sorts of good community-based options should be part of the suite of remedies available to people.We acknowledge that court cases can take a long time can be very distressing and can be quite costly on occasions and the reality is that the damage has already been done. And the victim naturally—particularly if it is a young victim—just wants the matter resolved as quickly as possible. So for those reasons victims may be very hesitant to lodge a formal complaint to the police. Again it is often the case that younger people do not always enjoy a particularly close and trusting relationship with the police and may be reluctant to come forward. It is well-known that victims of bullies often find the hardest thing is to reach out for help. This I hope with this civil enforcement regime will lower the bar and make it more possible for victims of cyber-bullying to reach out. So the approved agency having received a complaint can then decide whether there are grounds to proceed with an investigation or whether perhaps a complaint might be vexatious—it happens. It may be frivolous—it happens in this environment. It will advise people on steps that they can take to resolve a problem. Where it investigates substantial complaints it will attempt to reach settlements between the complainant and the person responsible—so mediation and again therein comes the utilisation I would hope of existing mechanisms in the resolution of disagreements. Where an agreement cannot be reached then of course there are the provisions of the District Courts which I have already mentioned.I just want to finish by talking briefly about the safe harbour provision. So a content host could be anyone these days: anybody who has a blog Facebook Twitter Vodafone. Most of our legislation was written before the internet was a consideration so it is not always clear when a content host is liable for the content posted by its users. So we are proposing a safe harbour. What that means is that a host will not be able to be taken to court for comments put on their website unless they have been notified by the complainant that the comments are in breach of the law and they then do not follow the process set out in the bill. There have been many thoughtful contributions on this Harmful Digital Communications Bill. I do acknowledge that it is a legislative response that some view as impinging on freedom of speech and perhaps might be too heavy-handed. What I would say is that the protection of our young people in particular—their protection from cyber-bullying—is so very important that I think this bill is a very good step and I commend it to the House.