Curran Clare: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee Social Media—Reporting on Parliamentary ProceedingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: Privilege — Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee Social Media—Reporting on Parliamentary Proceedings[Sitting date: 16 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6706. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): It is a privilege to be the final speaker in this debate on the Privileges Committee report. I was part of what is now is being known as the Twitter debate. I was the interloper on the Privileges Committee and I am very proud to have had the opportunity to do that. I probably would describe myself as being on the more radical end of the spectrum amongst my colleagues with my views around the use of social media but certainly not radical when it comes to the wider public and the wider public’s use of social media. I will expound upon that a little bit during my contribution tonight.I do not think there is too much point in going over too much of the detail because that has been well canvassed by other erudite speakers. Basically the conclusion of this report was that you should use your common sense when tweeting facebooking instagramming or whatever else you are doing on social media and you should not forget that you are an MP and can be held accountable. Also it says that rights to free speech will be upheld but just do not take pictures in the House unless you are in the gallery and you have permission and use your good judgment. Thankfully parody and satire are now OK again.This inquiry came about because of this thing called Twitter. It is called an inquiry into social media but actually in my contention it is about Twitter because of the particular nature of that social media interface. I will just bring everyone back to the reason for this debate. The reason actually was that a tweet from my Labour colleague Trevor Mallard criticised a decision by the Speaker in May last year. I will not read out the tweet but the tweet was sufficient to draw the attention of the Leader of the House. It was not the first time I think that there had been a discussion about the character of particular tweets. I know that certain numbers of my own tweets have been called into question by members across the House.There was a certain inevitability to the fact that there would eventually be some kind of inquiry. It is certainly not a precedent; there have been inquiries in other jurisdictions. The Privileges Committee took advantage of that and sought the advice from these other jurisdictions and ultimately came to the right conclusion in the main in my contention.I just want to touch on how important this social media thing is and just have a look at the use of social media amongst members of the House. I think that one of speakers in the debate actually referred to there being 105 members who use Twitter. I am reliably informed today by that recorder of political minutiae Phil Lyth that 106 have Twitter accounts that in most months there would be around 90 members actually actively tweeting and that there are 15 members who do not have accounts at all. In terms of Facebook another watcher of political activity Ashley Murchison has recorded that 117 out of 121 of us are listed on Facebook.I think that what that tells us is that social media and the use of social media is not a fad. If you look at the New Zealand statistics from last year 89 percent of New Zealanders are online; 55 percent of us use Facebook which is about 2.2 million; and more than 370000 of us are on Twitter. So I think that this debate and this report have to be taken in that context—that New Zealanders use social media a lot it is particular tool of communication and it is important therefore that Parliament takes that seriously.Just in relation to the report I think that we were aided very admirably by the submissions—there were 14 submissions—and particularly by the submission made by the former Clerk of the House Mary Harris who gave very good guidance to the committee. Very briefly she said: “My submission is based on the view that the use of social media has not changed the essential nature of the issues that the rules of the House have evolved to deal with; and that advances in technology offer a huge opportunity to engage New Zealanders with Parliament as never before. For both these reasons my general response to the questions that the committee has asked submitters to address is that restriction or regulation should be avoided. Transgressions of rules and conventions made via social media are no different to those made in any other way. They should be dealt with by recourse to the existing rules of the House.” She went on to say that “Parliaments that have persisted in a restrictive approach have placed themselves at risk of appearing to be out-of-touch with the modern world.” I absolutely concur with that view and in my humble opinion we should have taken that to include the use of photographs as well. I will talk a little bit about that in a second.Ultimately the conclusion of the inquiry was—and it was the right conclusion—that we already have rules in the House. We have got Standing Order 410(o) which is the Standing Order that applies; it is just that the mediums we are using are different. So the rules are right and they have withstood the test of time and they will continue to withstand the test of time. I think that shows the robustness of our parliamentary processes our rules and the thought that has gone into them. It does not matter what comes next in terms of technology because those rules should be adhered to. So I think basically that the committee worked that out quite quickly.Where we did have the debate was around the role of the media and their rights and around relaxing that rule on satire. I agree with what Gareth Hughes said about that which was that it was an out-of-date rule and that anything that actually penalises satire and parody is not the mark of a good democracy. I think that is pretty important.Where I do differ is on the use of photographs. I believe that a sensible approach to this would have been to allow a more minimalist use of taking photographs where people give their permission and I believe that just as is demonstrated out there in the community people do have the capacity to moderate their behaviour online when it is clearly not appropriate—there are rules that are in place—and I think that at some point we will revise the decision that has been made on that.I am pleased that we have as I said relaxed the rules on satire. I think we have clarified the ability for the press gallery to take photos and to film and again I would like to commend the submission that the chair of the press gallery Claire Trevett made which was a very useful contribution. But ultimately saying that the use of photographs is not acceptable is I think to stick your finger in the dyke and I believe that we will at some point come back and revise that decision if we are to be a truly modern Parliament and if we are to reflect the use of technology at its most beneficial and effective.The public want to see MPs and they want to engage with them more directly. I refer to a group of parliamentarians called the Parliamentary Internet Forum—me Gareth Hughes Nikki Kaye and Tracey Martin—which was kicked off in 2010 and really did try to provide a way of having more open government and more accessibility to Parliament by using social media and technology.Motion agreed to.