Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Resale Right for Visual Artists Bill at its first reading.Isn't intellectual property interesting? I am not particularly expert in the area but I do always find it fascinating to grapple with these concepts of who owns intellectual property to—Angie Warren-Clark: Speak some French to us.CHRIS PENK: Pardon me?Angie Warren-Clark: Speak some French to us.CHRIS PENK: Speak some French to us—maybe later. No I don't trust my high school French or my high school Latin actually for that matter sufficiently to do that so you'll have to do with my bad high school English instead.So with this bill we've heard from others that there are a couple of reasons I think in summary that we might agree on this side of the House to support the bill at its first reading. The first and most obvious is because there's piece of international law that says that we should a bilateral agreement admittedly as between New Zealand and the EU—I suppose at that multilateral level there are more parties involved. But roughly speaking we've signed up with the EU as a country to various different terms and conditions to use the language of the private contract and this is one of them. So with the executive having signed up the country to do that the Parliament is being asked to ratify that essentially so we're obliged in good faith to consider that as a Parliament. National's said that as an exercise in respecting that treaty-making process and good international relations we will do just that. So we support it at least to the first reading. And of course the other reason that we have said we'll agree to support at first reading is because at the select committee stage we'll have the opportunity to hear from those in the sector but also those more widely I think who will have a view on this. It's pretty novel within New Zealand to have a resale right such that the royalties will accrue to the originator of the work the original owner of the work the original creator of the work so it'll be interesting actually to hear the views of those who are most directly affected. I suspect that we will hear overwhelmingly from people who are in the business of making art of various types that they are in favour of this. But I also wonder if some unintended consequences will be aired. I think it's a reasonable question to ask as to whether this might have a chilling effect on sales in the sense that the thing that a person purchases isn't an unencumbered title to that property in the sense that there are no further obligations to a third party of course. In selling from person B to person C person B will of course have an obligation back to person A to give them some percentage of that. So that's I think a reasonable question to ask. And certainly for those on the select committee I'm sure they'll be interested in hearing those views and I look forward to any of those discussions that I'm fortunate enough to take part in. So that's a couple of reasons that we might and in fact do support it at this the first reading. Then I suppose for the sake of completeness within the rest of this short contribution that I'll be making it's worth considering if there are any factors—that we shouldn't support the passage of the bill further. Without prejudging that decision there's an obvious point around consistency. So why should it be that art or visual art is covered by such a regime but not other goods? We can go back to the first point which is of course narrowly speaking this is what's in the free-trade agreement. But if it's a good idea for this particular sector might it be a good idea for others? I probably would tend to suggest that that won't be a conclusion we reach but it's again I think a fair question at such an early stage of New Zealand's consideration of these kinds of matters. And finally the question of red tape—the practicality the practicability the enforceability of such a regime will be really interesting. I don't know if we're going to inadvertently create a black market for art or—I mean if such a thing doesn't really exist; I suppose it might. I wouldn't know but that's the point about a black market isn't it? You just don't know. Anyway these are all fair considerations I think both for and against and we look forward to that discussion at the select committee. In the meantime as I say and as others have said on this side of the House we support the bill at this its first reading.