Hutchison Paul: National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna MAtauranga o Aotearoa) Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna MAtauranga o Aotearoa) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4950] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I was very interested to hear my colleague talk about those pinnacles of English literature— 
Collins Comments 
 and  
mccully.co 
 etc. However I want to concentrate again on clause 30 and the area of legal deposit because it was that area that we as a party were very concerned about before the bill went to the House then to the select committee and under the very good interparty collaboration in the select committee emerged triumphantly. I just wanted to make the point that it was only in December last year that the  
Dominion Post 
 stated that under New Zealand legal deposit rules publishers already had to provide the library with three copies of any book they published free of charge. The article said that the National Library Bill was set to extend that obligation to cover any type of CD Rom video or other electronic media listed by the Minister and that the National Library would be free to automatically harvest what it wanted from the web. What a great term “harvest” is. The permutations and combinations associated with that term and the changes in technology are absolutely limitless. 
The article went on to state that the National Library had become increasingly strident in its efforts to avoid irrelevance in the face of an explosion of online information and was also set to win the right to convert deposited books into electronic form. It then went on to say that the Newspaper Publishers Association had said that the bill gave the responsible Minister too much discretion to decide what was and what was not a public document and could impose significant costs on publishers. The Minister Marian Hobbs is in the chair and I would ask her to elucidate a few aspects of that issue. 
Interestingly the reply from the Chief Librarian to that article was fairly succinct and she put our concerns to rest. [ 
Interruption 
] No she did not use those terms Mr Carter. She said: “The bill gives the National Library the ability to harvest and make available web content that is already accessible without restrictions. However the National Library would protect the commercial interests of publishers.” That is absolutely vital. Web content that generates revenue—for example a searchable database and other subscriber-based services would be made publicly available only if publishers agreed. That is utterly key. I would certainly like the Minister to just take a small call to assure the Committee that that aspect is absolutely watertight because nothing would be worse than finding in the future that those commercial interests were lost. 
The Chief Librarian then went on to say: “It is incorrect to say that the library is set to win the right to convert deposited books into electronic format. Books that the library receives in hard copy format can’t be converted into electronic format except under the terms of the Copyright Act 1994. The National Library bill proposes no change to that.” So might the Minister be able to tell us that that is absolutely watertight? 
The other point I want to make is that in clause 30(3) there is something that gives me a bit of trepidation. It says: “The Minister may by notice in the  
Gazette 
 authorise the National Librarian to make a copy at any time or times and at his or her discretion of public documents that are internet documents in accordance with any terms and conditions as to format public access or other matters that are specified in the notice.” That provision really gives the Minister carte blanche. She may authorise the gazetting of anything that takes her fancy. 
To my mind one of the greatest worries about the Internet today is deciphering quality from the absolutely unmitigated conglomeration of explosive verbiage that comes across it. It requires huge skills of discrimination. Again I would like the Minister to take a call and absolutely assure the Committee that successive Ministers are likely to be discriminating in terms of that particular clause because it gives a Minister huge possibilities and licence. 
I want to end by just saying that this is indeed a great moment in terms of celebrating a very important New Zealand institution—the National Library of New Zealand. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Heather Roy to clause 28 be agreed to: 
to amend subclause (1) by adding to the definition of  
restriction 
 the following paragraph: 
(c)means recognition of legal restrictions that already may exist for material on internet sites.