Hon Christopher Finlayson

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : The Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill amends the Copyright Act 1994 to address the emergence of technologies such as the Internet. During the Committee stage I dealt at length with particular matters in both Parts 1 and 2, and I do not intend to repeat those comments here.

This bill is a major piece of legislation because it deals with, among other things, technological protection measures and Internet service provider liability. Those are very important issues, and I regret to say that I think this bill is very much a patch-up job and very much what I would call third-rate law reform. It is clear that the Copyright Act is overdue for comprehensive reform. If we look at the structure of this legislation, we see that a huge number of sections in the 1994 Act are amended. In my opinion, to introduce legislation that is episodic and, as I said, a patch-up job is simply not the way to serve the commercial and creative communities. I cannot understand why the Government did not take the opportunity to undertake comprehensive reform of the Copyright Act. As I said during the Committee stage, the Act is well overdue for comprehensive reform. It was last carefully reviewed in 1993 and 1994, and since that time there have been huge changes in technology. If any legislation justifies comprehensive reform, it is this one.

The National Party will support the third reading, not because it considers the bill to be particularly sparkling legislation but because it is in the interests of the commercial and creative communities that some of these changes be introduced at the first available opportunity. Had National been in a position to do so, it would, however, have undertaken comprehensive reform, because many issues have been missed in the course of this particular law reform exercise. Why is it that this Government is so lacking in vision and energy that it cannot initiate a comprehensive review of what I consider to be one of the most important statutes on the statute book? This Government is so lacking in ideas and intelligence that it does not even know what questions to ask, let alone the answers, and it is well known that one always judges a person by the questions he or she asks.

We have been told that there will be yet more reform. Further changes to the Act will be introduced some time this year, and legislation will be referred to a select committee, where, presumably, it will languish for months. Yet another patch-up job will be done on the Copyright Act.

The particular thing that I objected to in the whole shabby law reform exercise that constituted the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill was the way the Opposition was treated over eleventh hour Supplementary Order Papers. I made it quite clear at an early stage, when there appeared to be some very real concerns in the commercial community about some of the changes recommended by the select committee, that I would do anything I could to assist, because I regarded this bill as non - party political but none the less very important law reform. It was extremely important that all parties worked together sensibly in order to ensure that there was good law reform for the sake of the commercial and the creative communities. However, I received copies of the Supplementary Order Papers very late in the piece—indeed, on the day we were debating the bill in the Committee stage—and I think that that is discourteous to members of Parliament.

Above all—putting aside discourtesy—it is counter-productive for Opposition members to receive Supplementary Order Papers so late in the piece. If we are to do a good job with this sort of legislation, which, as I say, is non - party political but none the less very important, it behoves the Government to put aside the election-year sniping and election-year positioning, and get Supplementary Order Papers to members of Parliament so that they can have a good look at them and make sensible contributions in the Committee stage. Maybe I am old-fashioned and irrelevant, but I for one believe that debates in this place matter, and that we should approach our task as legislators with some degree of zeal and intelligence. How one can do that simply escapes me when one gets Supplementary Order Papers at the eleventh hour rammed down one’s throat and one has no real opportunity to study them and give them the careful attention that is required. So there we have it.

The National Party will support the passage of this legislation, but we are not happy with it. We think it is poor legislation. We think the process has been very poorly executed, and, as usual, we think that we have been treated with the customary discourtesy that we have come to expect from this Government.