Martin Tracey: Harmful Digital Communications Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMartin Tracey: Harmful Digital Communications Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 30 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4857. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TRACEY MARTIN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. First of all just to address some of the concerns that have been raised can I just say that New Zealand First was the only party in this House with the courage of its concerns to make an attempt at the second reading to send this bill back to the Justice and Electoral Committee. That motion was certainly supported by other parties in this House but at that time we were the only party raising those concerns that had the courage to actually move a motion to try to send it back. We also voted against the bill at the second reading. So I take particular umbragewith Mr Seymour actually and with the trivialising of the effect of cyber-bullying on our young people. I want to quote from the New Zealand Herald of 30 June in which Mr Seymour said: “Other online behaviour like sexual grooming was already illegal. ‘What are we actually criminalising—kids being mean to each other?’ ”. Kids who have been mean to other kids have killed themselves. That is one of the reasons why we need to traverse this ground. So I take exception to the trivialisation of some of the trauma that is actually being inflicted—and I am talking particularly about our young people—by internet cyber-bullying. That is the reason why it is important that we address this issue—but appropriately; we have to address it correctly.I want to take on board the comments about schools and whether the current anti-bullying programmes and mediation programmes inside schools are adequate enough to address this issue. The following is from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA). Predominantly—at the moment anyway—the majority of the issues that we have inside our schools are focused at the secondary school level. The association said: “The Harmful Digital Communications Bill currently before parliament proposes to ‘deter prevent and mitigate the harm caused to individuals by digital communications with a quick and effective means of address’. The bill attempts to provide a legal solution to the harm caused by cyberbullying and recognises harmful online comments as a form of harassment. It includes new penalties for causing harm through digital communication and creates a new agency with the power to assess and investigate complaints. The agency will also have an education role similar to the Human Rights Commission … ‘Schools regard cyberbullying as a very serious problem especially because it often occupies the blurred space between home and school so it’s not always clear whose responsibility it is to deal with it’ ”.This comes down to the current ability of schools with regard to the discipline procedures inside the Education Act 1989. When children leave the school grounds they are in an interesting space. Are they still in their school uniforms and therefore still in school and so the school rules still actually apply? And believe me these are true cases and true conversations that I and other boards of trustees have had to have. Or have they removed their school shirts and therefore are just in their school shorts? Does that mean that the school rules still apply? But when they are at home in their civvies texting another student in the school it has been argued that they are no longer under the jurisdiction of the school and therefore the school can do nothing about it. That is one of the problems that we are trying to address here. That is one of the spaces that we are trying to address here.Another suggestion that has been made is that there is existing law and that we should just use existing law right now. I put up this example at the Committee stage. One of the suggestions was that we already have the Harassment Act. The problem is that the Harassment Act makes the assumption that there is a relationship between the person being harassed and the person doing the harassing. Before this bill passes there is no room inside the Harassment Act actually to create a relationship wherein somebody can harass a person without even knowing them—without even knowing a person they can harass them. They can do it without knowing anything about a person apart from the fact that perhaps they are say a really good singer in the school production and they themselves cannot sing and they have decided that they are now going to make that person’s life a misery. Inside that current Act there has to be a relationship.Misuse of a phone device—we went through that as well. Certainly there have been photographs taken on a phone; they have then been posted up on a computer. And once it goes from the misuse of a phone it becomes a whole other environment. You cannot take it down. You cannot deal with it. Certainly to threaten somebody with bodily harm is also I think within the Crimes Act section 306. Again the current Act makes an assumption that there is a relationship between the person being threatened and the person doing the threatening. What we are discovering is that these threats are coming completely out of the blue for many people—for example the young Sikh student who was on a bus. Not a single person knew him but they threatened him and there was nothing that the police could do about it. This is what we are trying to avoid.I talked about freedom and we have talked about freedom of speech. Freedom comes with responsibility. Freedom comes with responsibilities and obviously there are some people out there who do not figure out what those responsibilities are inside this environment. I go back to comments made at NetHui a couple of years ago that the internet is a place. If the internet is a place then we need to have some criteria in it. We need to have some rules in it because there are people being hurt in this place and part of the job of this Parliament is to stop people from being hurt. Also Ms Ardern addressed the question of whether—there was conversation at the select committee—bloggers were really “media”. I would make this statement: media can certainly be bloggers; bloggers cannot and should not ever be considered as media. The media has actually taken training. They have criteria. They have boundaries that they work inside of and they can be held accountable inside of them. Anybody who wants to set up a blog and just vent their opinion should not be considered media. So with regard to that I would hope—and I know it was pushed by certain members of the blogging society at the select committee—that the line maintained by media true media is maintained.In closing I think that probably the only other thing is that we agree in this House—all people agree in this House—that something has got to be done. I would certainly endorse Ms Ardern’s comments about our needing to have a look at this in a year’s time. New Zealand First was concerned about the fact that we did not want to criminalise children when there were other options available to us. So we worked constructively with the Minister and the Minister put in a Supplementary Order Paper that addressed all of New Zealand First’s concerns. We will watch like everybody will watch whether people can behave appropriately without Parliament stepping in and protecting those who are being attacked those who are being affected. Take Yik Yak for example. I do not know how many people in this House know what Yik Yak is. Yik Yak is an app on which people can actually make comments—just constantly “blah” their mind on this app. For university students it is about missing a lecture or whateverthe majority of the time. Down in Wellington it is being used in a relatively constructive way. Go out of Wellington and it is really interesting how vicious that Yik Yak is inside secondary schools—how absolutely anonymously vicious it is. And yet what is interesting is the way that they hook people into it. When you have made five or 10 really nasty comments you become famous. You become famous inside this app.New Zealand First will support the bill. As I said we did not support it at its second reading but we worked constructively and the Minister has taken on board our concerns. The bill has been rewritten to a certain extent with the Supplementary Order Papers and so therefore we will support it through third reading. Kia ora.